
Class. 

Book.. 







Copyright "N?_ 



COfVRIGKT DEPOStE 



Using the Resources 
of the Country Church 



By 

ERNEST R. GROVES 

Professor of Sociology 

New Hampshire State College 

"Durham, N. H. 



Association 3$tt&6 

124 East 28th Street, New York 
1917 



■fil 



Copyright, 1917, by 

The International Committee op 

Young Men's Christian Associations 



M II 1917 

©CI.A462936 



r\ 






TO THE MEMORY OF 

DOROTHY DOE GROVES 

"Far off thou art, but ever nigh* 



PREFACE 

The American people are just beginning 
to realize the need of the conservation of 
natural resources. There is evidence that 
the nation is slowly awakening to the ne- 
cessity of a wiser use of natural wealth. 
The pressure of economic circumstances is 
emphasizing for the more thoughtful the 
importance of conservation. This idea of 
a better use of our natural resources is of 
the utmost social value. It augurs well 
for our future as a nation. 

There is equal need of our taking heed of 
our moral resources. Men and women are 
more important than natural possessions. 
The greatest human wealth is morality. It 
is this which separates man from the animal 
and makes social life on the human plane 
possible. Morality represents a great so- 
cial resource. It needs conservation, for 
upon its wise use depends human progress. 

The country especially needs to conserve 
its moral resources. Its social problems do 
not attract the attention that urban prob- 



vi PREFACE 

lems obtain. There is, therefore, often less 
careful use of moral opportunity. Moral 
sentiment is created, but not directed into 
social service. This brings serious social 
loss. 

This book is a plea for greater conserva- 
tion of the moral forces and opportunities 
to be found in the American small com- 
munity. It is based upon the belief that 
social progress depends most upon moral 
statesmanship, the wise directing of the 
moral energy which, fortunately, is present 
in every community. 

I wish to thank the editors of Rural 
Manhood for permission to make use of 
material contributed to that periodical. 

June, 1917. E. R. G. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Preface v 

Introduction 1 

I. The Church of the Small Com- 
munity and City Drift 5 

II. The Church of the Small Com- 
munity and its Moral Advan- 
tages 23 

III. The Minister of the Small 

Community and the Conser- 
vation of His Social Experi- 
ences 33 

IV. The Church of the Small Com- 

munity and the Conservation 
of Community Spirit 46 

V. The Church of the Small Com- 
munity and the Conservation 
of the Family 55 

VI. The Church of the Small Com- 
munity and the Conservation 
of Recreation 66 

VII. The Church of the Small Com- 
munity and the Conservation 
of Physical Health 75 

VIII. The Church of the Small Com- 
munity and the Conservation 

of Mental Health 86 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

Page 

IX. The Chuech of the Small Com- 
munity and the Problem of 
the Feeble-minded 96 

X. The Church of the Small Com- 
munity and the Conservation 
of Beauty 109 

XI. The Church of the Small Com- 
munity and the Conservation 
of Goodness 116 

XII. The Church of the Small Com- 
munity and the Conservation 
of Truth . . 124 

XIII. The Church of the Small Com- 

munity and the Conservation 
of Human Experiences 134 

XIV. The Minister of the Church 

of the Small Community and 
His Personal Opportunities . 142 



INTRODUCTION 

The great social need of our time is the 
bringing of the religion of Jesus closer to 
the deep, concrete needs of men and 
women. This has always been the great 
social need, for men and women cannot 
live well together unless they root their 
lives in profound spiritual vitality. Sin is 
a human evil — not the fault of a period of 
time. Social ills are sins expressed in or- 
ganized forms — personal selfishness show- 
ing its relationships in its social conse- 
quences. Neither the bad man nor the 
good man can live unto himself. 

It is therefore the business of Chris- 
tianity both to develop spiritual power and 
to put it to use. Full service is impossible 
if the Christian organization fails in either 
of these activities. Socially men must be 
made to feel as brothers and then they 
must be taught to act as such. There is 
no easier way socially than this path of 

i 



2 INTRODUCTION 

brotherhood and unselfish service. With- 
out the service the brotherhood soon ceases 
to seem real. Without the brotherhood the 
service soon loses its courage and high 
ideals. Without spiritual vitality both 
brotherhood and service fail to withstand 
the test of time. 

This generation appears, however, to 
have a social distinction, even if the great 
social problems are merely the expressions 
of human selfishness. It is more difficult 
than in earlier times to see the personal 
evil in the social ill. The sin of the indi- 
vidual is lost in the great complexity of the 
situation. It is difficult to fix responsi- 
bility. Often we are uncertain as to what 
expresses bad judgment and what shows 
wicked intent. 

The size, organization, and intricacy of 
our social problems f put upon us a greater 
moral test. We must be better than our 
fathers or our social life will be less Chris- 
tian than theirs. Human progress re- 
quires, if we are to live a satisfactory social 
life, a superior morality. This it is the 



INTRODUCTION 3 

task of the Christian organizations to de- 
velop. 

It is the temptation of some well-feeling 
people to think of service as something 
done at a distance. The great social con- 
tributions must always come, however, 
from those who see needs close at hand 
and have the good judgment and the true 
courage to meet such needs. Whether 
Christianity keeps close to human neces- 
sities or not depends upon the interpreta- 
tion it receives; therefore, Christian teach- 
ers are under obligation to keep always in 
mind the great necessity of making spirit- 
ual opportunity appear closely related to 
the social service of the individual. We 
must not be selfish even in our spiritual 
experiences. Spiritual vitality depends 
upon the social impulse. 

No organization needs to cultivate the 
habit of seeing possible service near at hand 
more than does the country church. The 
relation between it and the community in 
which it lives is so definite that it can never 
have excuse for failing to realize its com- 



4 INTRODUCTION 

munity responsibilities. It is of the com- 
munity, in spite of itself, and its spiritual 
possibilities are found in its happy dis- 
covery of the largeness of its community 
ministration. 

No service for the community can be 
greater than to conserve its moral forces 
by revealing and directing human ideal- 
ism. This is the high calling of the com- 
munity church. It puts to work the as- 
pirations of the community and stimulates 
every good endeavor. It becomes spiritual 
in social service. 

Rural progress depends most of all upon 
the conservation by the country church of 
its moral and spiritual resources. Men and 
women in village and rural life must first 
come under the influence of a practical 
idealism before other efforts to solve press- 
ing social problems in the country and 
small towns can hope to have success. The 
church therefore that has found its social 
mission in a wise passion for concrete com- 
munity service, has become to its place of 
ministration indeed the Church of God, 



I 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND CITY DRIFT 

The church of the small community is 
vitally interested in the problem of city 
drift. It is not to be expected that all of 
the youth of a small country place or 
village will remain at home. Many of 
the young men and women ought to go to 
the cities, for only in urban environment 
can they expect to find their deepest de- 
sires satisfied. On the other hand, it is 
often true that the city draws from the 
community individuals who could live a 
happier and healthier life in the country, 
were they well prepared to make the most 
of their rural opportunities. This move- 
ment of population from the small com- 
munity to the city concerns the rural and 
village church profoundly. It often robs 
the church of its most promising leaders. 
It presents a problem that the church 

5 



6 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

needs to study if it attempts to conserve 
the human resources of the small com- 
munity. 

Modern psychology proves the useless- 
ness of attempting to understand adult 
conduct by mere study of adult motives 
and circumstances, for the adult brings to 
each decision an accumulation of past ex- 
periences largely determining his choices, 
and in this personal collection the happen- 
ings of childhood and early youth have the 
greatest significance. It is by no means 
necessary that the adult, as he faces a 
definite situation, and is influenced in his 
decision by motives born of childhood en- 
vironment, should recognize the fact that 
he acts as he does because of the events 
of his early life. 

In many cases there is no clear under- 
standing of the significance of early im- 
pressions, but this fact in no sense lessens 
the importance of the true cause of the 
conduct. It is reasonable to assume that 
any social movement which has become 
pronounced enough to be clearly recog- 



CITY DRIFT 7 

nized as characteristic of a period of time 
and group of people, has behind it, acting 
as a source of motives, a collection of 
similar significant early impressions. 

The movement of population toward 
urban centers, so strongly expressed in 
Europe and America at the present time, 
deserves study in the light of the modern 
teaching of psychology concerning the 
meaning of childhood experiences as de- 
termining adult conduct. It is everywhere 
admitted that this urban attraction of rural 
population is socially significant, and that 
its causes are many. It is even feared by 
many that it represents an unwholesome 
and dangerous tendency in modern life, and 
that it should be investigated for the pur- 
pose of discovering a reasonable check 
upon this drift to the cities. 

No study of the mental causes behind 
this urban enticement can fail to discover 
the importance of the suggestions received 
by country children during their prepara- 
tion for life. Suggestions influence the 
child profoundly, and, of course, not less 



8 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

in the country than in the city. In many 
cases the life of the rural child is pene- 
trated more deeply by significant sugges- 
tions, because his life, since it is spent in a 
less complex environment, offers a smaller 
quantity of suggestions, or a greater uni- 
formity of such influence. In any case, the 
suggestions that enter the mind of the rural 
child provide a basis for explaining later 
actions. 

Some of the deepest impressions in any 
child's life are the results of parents' atti- 
tudes. The child can hardly fail to be 
moved by the feeling and opinion of his 
father and mother, and usually their feel- 
ings and opinions are repeatedly expressed. 
Especially with reference to their occupa- 
tion and environment, rural parents are 
likely to have attitudes that are frankly 
and often expressed. Many a child brought 
up in the country is given again and again, 
even perhaps several times a day during 
the most impressionable years, suggestions 
born of rural discontent. 

Every occupation provides reasons for 



CITY DRIFT 9 

discontent, but in the country any dissatis- 
faction with the conditions of the chief 
industry, farming, is likely to develop into 
discontent regarding the country itself, for 
the occupation and the environment are 
hardly to be distinguished. Indeed, in 
leaving the occupation of farming, it is 
usually necessary for such people also to 
leave the country towns. Not infrequently 
the parent expresses discontent regarding 
the conditions of life in the country, when 
the reason for his attitude is only one un- 
happy, perhaps temporary, condition in his 
occupation. Discontent seldom discrimi- 
nates, and there is much to tempt the dis- 
satisfied farmer to express his emotions in 
a general indictment against rural life. 

It requires no argument to demonstrate 
that the child interprets his suggestions with 
a minimum of discrimination. Although 
negative suggestion at times operates, and 
the child takes the attitude opposite that 
of the parent, as a rule he assumes things 
to be as they are said to be. If the child, 
even after a number of years, feels the dis- 



10 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

content of father or mother, or both, with 
reference to living in the country and re- 
specting rural environment, it is to be ex- 
pected that he will accumulate a mass of 
mental material which sooner or later is 
bound to provide motives for conduct. 

In this connection, one needs to remem- 
ber that all who live in the country are not 
there because they prefer the country to the 
town. They may have failed to find an op- 
portunity to go to the city, or they may 
have lacked the courage to attempt a 
radically different life and occupation. In 
some cases urban-minded people do not 
have their urban cravings awakened until 
they have become so fixed in the country 
that economic heroism is required to pull 
up stakes and move to the city; and it so 
happens that one may be in the country 
but not of it, spreading discontent regard- 
ing rural conditions at every opportunity. 
Certainly such discontent cannot fail to 
suggest dissatisfaction to rural youth. 

Rural education, of course, provides 
many opportunities for penetrating sug- 



CITY DRIFT 11 

gestions, and any one who intimately 
knows the schools of the country will ad- 
mit that their suggestions are not always 
friendly to rural interests. The character 
of some studies makes it difficult for the 
teacher not to emphasize urban conditions. 
In the endeavor after the dramatic and the 
ideal, the teacher is likely to draw upon 
urban life, since urban life circumstances 
provide so much that surely will appeal to 
the country boy and girl. 

It is fair to state that a beginning has 
been made in the effort to utilize country 
life possibilities in teaching material. But 
one usually finds in the ordinary text-book 
an unconscious tendency to emphasize the 
urban point of view and to accept it as the 
social standard. Many of the striking 
human experiences of modern life neces- 
sarily culminate amid urban conditions, 
even when caused largely by rural in- 
fluences. The urban center is the passion 
spot, and affords more opportunity for the 
exploration of the dramatic. 

The same fact is true of ideals. The 



1* COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

teacher is often tempted to use urban illus- 
trations in her effort to establish ideals of 
conduct. The spectacular character of moral 
struggle and ethical effort in the city makes 
urban life a source from which to draw in- 
teresting moral appeal. This bias in teach- 
ing is magnified not infrequently by the at- 
titude of the teacher toward rural life, 
consciously or unconsciously. She — for of 
course the rural teacher is usually a woman 
— has often a mind filled with urban inter- 
ests and a craving born of urban purposes, 
and she displays enthusiasm in sympathy 
with her deepest wishes. She may in this 
manner become an ambassador who rep- 
resents the condition of her choice— urban 
life. When she is a teacher of skill, ambi- 
tion, and progress, it is hardly strange that 
she expects to move on to a larger town, 
and finally, if fortunate, to a city; for upon 
such a career depends largely her progress 
in her profession — her increase in salary, 
her freedom, and her professional standing. 
The suggestion of the urban-minded 
teacher and the urban-inspired school sys- 



CITY DRIFT 13 

tern are bound to provide effective sug- 
gestions that will later provide a basis for 
rural discontent. 

It is because of such subtle suggestions 
that the child often first decides to try 
city life; and, even when the decisions are 
soon forgotten, a sort of passing childish 
whim, they leave a remnant of possible 
discontent which later in life may become 
an element in a complex sentiment of dis- 
satisfaction. To value this rightly, one 
must remember how open the child is to 
suggestions, and how certain such in- 
fluences are to last, and how constantly 
they may be received term after term from 
the teacher. 

Rural youth obtain suggestions of enor- 
mous effect from the circumstances of 
their own personal careers. When the 
young man or woman has exhausted an 
economic environment that seems meager 
and monotonous because he or she is badly 
prepared by inefficient education to inter- 
pret it, there is but one thing that can be 
done in order to obtain relief: that is to 



14 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

move away. In the city, a like failure may 
mean a change of occupation. To change 
one's occupation in the country requires 
usually that one leave the country. Sug- 
gestions therefore that farming does not 
pay, or is too laborious and unprofitable, 
translated into effective action, bring about 
a removal from both industry and locality. 
The early experiences on the farm may 
leave a suggestion of unreasonable toil. 
Romantic youth cannot rest content with 
a vision of endless, lengthened hours of 
work and merely a living. Other oppor- 
tunities provide a living also, and less toil. 
Parents have at times been responsible for 
this conception of farming, because they 
have insisted upon having their sons and 
daughters work unreasonably during vaca- 
tion and after school. The parent who 
looks backward upon a generation more 
given to long toil than this, and uses his 
own earlier experiences as a standard, may 
the more easily commit this mistake and 
teach his children to hate the farm and 
rural life. 



CITY DRIFT 15 

The adult of little imagination is likely 
to forget another source of experiences in 
youth that may suggest to the country boy 
attitudes that later provide a basis for dis- 
content in regard to rural life. The boy 
on the farm finds at times that his holiday 
and vacation are encroached upon by 
needed labor. Weather and harvest condi- 
tions rob him of the pleasures that his vil- 
lage chum enjoys. Some definite plan for 
an outing, or some greatly desired day of 
sport has to be given up that the crop 
may not be injured. 

Doubtless parents allow these disap- 
pointments to happen with little reason, 
and looking at the matter from an adult 
point of view, do not regard the boys' feel- 
ings as of serious significance; and yet, in 
the light of modern psychology, we know 
that such experiences may build up a very 
significant hostility to the rural environ- 
ment that appears to be the cause of these 
agonizing disappointments. The cumula- 
tive effect of a few bitter experiences of 
this nature may be sufficient to turn the 



16 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

boy away from the country in his heart 
of hearts for all time. In such cases the 
first opportunity to leave the country for 
the town will be accepted gladly, as a way 
of escape from a life that is emotionally 
intolerable. 

A visit to some communities is enough 
to explain the migration from these com- 
munities, for they disclose themselves as 
having lost their self-respect. You will 
hear it said in such places repeatedly that 
no young man of worth is to be expected to 
remain in the town. It is no place for one 
who wishes to make something of himself. 
There is no opportunity, because the town 
is dead. The social atmosphere is com- 
posed of community discouragement, fault- 
finding, and suspicion. There is no hope 
among the people, no spirit of progress. A 
depression which may sink even to despair 
drives the normal youth out of the town, 
with the idea that all farming communities 
are decadent and not to be endured. 

This prevailing lack of community spirit 
and social courage must, in certain farm- 



CITY DRIFT 17 

ing communities, act as a most persistent 
and powerful stimulus to constant migra- 
tions. The great need in such rural com- 
munities is the development of community 
confidence and self-respect, and any suc- 
cess in bringing in a happier social attitude 
lessens the movement of the population to 
the city. 

The discouraged and discontented rural 
community lacks most of all wise, public- 
spirited leaders, for naturally its powerful 
persons have mostly moved away. There 
is little that works for the upbuilding of 
the community, for in the nature of things, 
influences that move public opinion and 
color social feeling require strong personali- 
ties for their source, and it is just such 
persons that have been driven away in 
despair. 

People from outside the community are 
greatly handicapped in any help that they 
may try to give, for the natives are both 
sensitive and suspicious and easily given to 
jealousy. Such outside assistance, given 
with the best of purposes, is no doubt often 



18 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

trivial, tactless, and even foolish. He who 
attempts "rural uplift" with missionary 
motives and attitudes soon finds his task 
hopeless, as a result of the deep resentment 
felt by those whom he attempts to serve. 

Nevertheless, in its last analysis, the 
problem of rural progress in a disheartened 
community must be solved mostly by con- 
serving what leadership still remains, and 
by means of intelligent counsel and in- 
spiration given by social and rural workers 
from outside the community who may be- 
come interested in it. So long as there is 
little constructive leadership at that point, 
the social condition encourages city drift. 

The student of rural life is tempted to 
look too much to the country and too little 
to the city for the causes of rural migra- 
tion. It is not easy to value properly the 
constant and impressive suggestions of 
urban opportunity furnished by the city. 
It is important to recognize that the pros- 
perity of the city requires that it exploit 
itself in ways that bring people to the city 
to live as well as to trade. Better business 



CITY DRIFT 19 

is obtained by methods of advertising that 
naturally lead to more people. 

Modern advertising is itself a supreme 
illustration of effective suggestion, and its 
development has been for the most part 
in the hands of urban interests. Such ad- 
vertising has forced rural people to con- 
trast their manner of life with urban con- 
ditions, often with the result of discontent. 
They are drawn to the city on special occa- 
sions by alluring city publicity manipu- 
lated with scientific skill by experts, and 
often return to their country homes dis- 
satisfied because of false notions regarding 
the pleasures of the city. Of course this 
is more largely true of young people and 
they are more open to suggestion. 

Recently a carnival, skilfully advertised 
and staged, was held in a western city. The 
most popular young woman in each of the 
neighboring small communities, elected by 
ballot, was invited to attend the gathering 
for several days as the guest of the carnival 
association. Listening to one of these 
young women telling her experiences in 



20 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

this, the most exciting week of her life, one 
wondered whether she could ever again 
feel content with the more normal joys of 
country life. Such an experience is merely 
one illustration of the countless forms that 
urban suggestion takes as it penetrates into 
the lives of rural people. 

Spectacular success is largely dependent 
upon urban conditions of life, and such 
success obtains public attention. Even in 
the country, the successes talked about are 
likely to be those made possible by city 
life. These are given space in the maga- 
zines and daily papers edited and pub- 
lished in the cities, and so they naturally 
occupy the minds of rural readers of such 
periodicals. 

The young man who feels the attraction 
of such enterprise, who wishes to have a 
part in big things, even if an insignificant 
part, who craves knowing big business at 
first hand, receives a suggestion that invites 
him cityward. When a community is it- 
self represented by some former resident in 
some spectacular success, it is certain that 



CITY DRIFT 21 

many young men will question their future 
on the farm in that locality. Thus the 
human product of a rural community robs 
it of its personality resources, and the ca- 
reer of the man of fame may continue to 
act as a tradition long after his death, and 
still add to the rural migration. 

It is not altogether clear what effect 
visitors in the summer from cities have 
upon rural people with reference to city 
drift. Although a matter of accident, 
perhaps, depending upon the character of 
the city people, and important only in a 
limited area of the country, summer vis- 
itors, nevertheless, must provide sugges- 
tions that occasionally operate powerfully 
upon some young people in the country 
in encouraging their going to the cities. 

Certain facts in some of our New Eng- 
land country towns, where visitors from the 
city return summer after summer, appear to 
indicate that this condition does encourage 
young people in going to the city. Such a 
result might be expected in the light of 
motives that govern human conduct and 



22 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

the influence that luxury and leisure have 
in bringing about discontent in the minds 
of workers who look with envy upon the 
pleasures of others. 

Perhaps this suggestion may be ex- 
pected to operate more upon the girl than 
upon the boy, for the girl sees in the 
woman visitor from the city a candidate 
for matrimony who has advantages over 
her rural rival. It is not difficult to trace 
the influence of summer people upon the 
fashion of the women of the small country 
community, and we have every right to 
assume that deeper suggestions are stim- 
ulated than those that have to do with 
manners or dress. 



II 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND ITS MORAL 
ADVANTAGES 

It is encouraging to the social worker in 
the country to consider the moral re- 
sources provided by the rural environment, 
The minister of the small - community 
church does well to estimate the advan- 
tages that his field of service has over city 
life. Of course rural and urban society 
each has its moral superiorities. Each also 
has its peculiar disadvantages. The coun- 
try worker often appears to make the mis- 
take of not appreciating fully the advan- 
tages that are naturally furnished by the 
country environment. 

Not to recognize clearly the resources 
provided for one's service is a fatal mis- 
take. Success depends upon conditions. 
Moral service requires the utilization of 
the resources that make it possible. The 



24 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

more definite and discriminating the con- 
ception of moral resources on the part of 
the social worker, the more fortunate it 
becomes for those to whom he ministers. 

It is necessary also that the worker in 
the country have a very precise idea of the 
end he wishes to accomplish. Although the 
object is bound to be individual and to 
vary in its concrete form with the person 
for whom one works, it is, nevertheless, 
possible to state it in general terms. Moral 
service attempts to use the opportunities 
provided by each person's instincts and 
desires, that a wholesome moral career 
may result. This effort to moralize the 
life requires that the personal and social 
resources be both known and used. 

It is folly for any worker to regard any 
serious social problem as having little to 
do with morals. At the heart of every 
social difficulty is its moral cause. It is 
equally true that a disregard of the moral 
resources that may be employed to solve 
the problem is most unfortunate. 

A very great resource in the small com- 



MORAL ADVANTAGES 25 

munity is the rather general neighborhood 
interest. In most places this is expressed 
in feelings that may be rightly defined as 
neighborhood spirit. It is common knowl- 
edge that interest is the root of sympathy. 
One does not care for those in whom he has 
no interest — at least not without great 
moral labor. The conditions of city life 
make this interest in persons difficult; the 
circumstances of rural and village life make 
it normal and inevitable that the members 
of the group should be interested in one 
another. It is indeed true that this inter- 
est does not always express itself in happy 
ways. It is at times the source of antago- 
nisms and jealousies. It remains a fact, 
however, that people in the small com- 
munity find it easy to become interested in 
one another and that people in the large 
city find it difficult to be much interested 
in many persons. 

The relation between urban people is 
likely to be economic. Outside a very 
small group of friends, the relations have 
mostly to do with commercial interests 



26 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

among the different members of the group. 
These interests appear for the most part 
to be of a character that forbids real sym- 
pathy, for they seem largely antagonistic. 
The reverse is true in the small community. 
The economic relations are generally few; 
the personal basis of association is the pre- 
dominating one. People take a natural 
and human interest in one another. 

This interest makes possible a very real 
and delightful fellow-feeling. Under whole- 
some moral influence this resource of per- 
sonal interest becomes the root of a very 
practical and beautiful sympathy. The 
church of the small community has no 
larger or more promising asset. It can 
turn this sympathy into many of the most 
attractive human virtues. 

It is doubtful whether this resource of 
sympathy is generally regarded at its true 
value, whether the churches know how to 
get from it all its moral wealth. Often a 
clear appreciation of its importance as a 
moral element in social life is lacking. 
Greater effort may be made to create sym- 



MORAL ADVANTAGES 27 

pathy for distant and different people than 
to use the normal and promising sympathy 
already available. Of course the creation 
of the first in no way limits the second, 
but it is sad to see a great moral oppor- 
tunity neglected, even if moral effort is 
bringing success at another point. Prob- 
ably in all such cases the mistake is made 
in not clearly appreciating how much good 
may be made to come from the fact that in 
a small community people are naturally 
interested in one another. 

The conditions of life in the small com- 
munity offer also another advantage. It 
is easy to establish a basis for personal 
moral responsibility. Concerning the im- 
portance of this for the moral worker there 
can be no doubt. The fixing of personal re- 
sponsibility is the largest problem in moral 
progress. A community life that naturally 
puts upon each person the obligations that 
rightly belong to him, and that holds him 
responsible for his actions, provides the 
moral worker with very great resources. 

Conditions are different in the city. The 



28 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

size and complexity of the city, the different 
classes and different standards of moral life, 
the lack of knowledge of the habits of one's 
neighbors, the indifference of one person 
concerning the activities of another — all of 
these conditions make it difficult, even im- 
possible for the most part, to fix personal 
responsibility. 

It is true that in the cities there are well- 
organized and efficient societies that have 
for their purpose the discovery of evil con- 
ditions and the apprehension of the persons 
responsible. The creation of these gives 
proof that urban life is weak in its ability 
to fix responsibility. The society attempts 
to do what the normal and wholesome pub- 
lic opinion in the small community nat- 
urally does. 

Great efforts are made in the city to 
create a public opinion that will be con- 
cerned with evils and that will express 
disapproval. These endeavors of the pub- 
lic to find the evildoer and punish him 
socially are likely to be fitful, often unfair, 
and usually, because of their spasmodic 



MORAL ADVANTAGES 29 

character, ineffective. Their partial suc- 
cesses cost much time, money, and thought 
which has to be contributed by a few pub- 
lic-spirited leaders in social reforms. 

There is often honest doubt as to the real 
beginning of an evil situation. When the 
origin has been found the question who is 
to blame is still difficult to answer. It often 
seems unfair to put the responsibility upon 
any one person — so many have contributed 
to the evil circumstance. Indeed, the 
public itself, in a most general and irre- 
sponsible sense, may have been mostly to 
blame for the evil for which it now wishes 
to punish some one. 

In the country and village environment 
there is usually a very definite and forceful 
fixing of responsibility. This may at times 
lack sympathy and perspective. It may 
even become cruel. It is, however, a very 
powerful resource for the moral worker. 

It becomes the duty of the church of the 
small community to take advantage of this 
fixing of responsibility and to make it con- 
structive. It requires education and direc- 



30 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

tion. It needs to be given attention in a 
sympathetic way. Young people especially 
need to realize the importance of public 
opinion and the reason why it is unwise 
and socially wrong to become indifferent 
to what people may say. 

Probably no one would deny that this 
fear of public criticism does not furnish 
the highest type of morality. The history 
of early morality, especially in primitive 
life, shows, nevertheless, that it is often 
the beginning of a moral regard which 
finally develops into a higher moral stand- 
ard. It may wisely be used to teach men 
and women to value morality for its own 
sake. 

Since men and women in small com- 
munities are certain to make moral judg- 
ments regarding the doings of their fellows, 
it becomes the clear duty of the church to 
establish the proper standard for moral 
criticism. Its effective service depends 
largely upon its ability to make the people 
of the community realize what the things 
are that are blameworthy and under what 



MORAL ADVANTAGES SI 

conditions the persons responsible should be 
blamed. The significance of the attitude 
of the community itself may wisely be em- 
phasized, and a wholesome sympathy cre- 
ated for the person who morally fails. 

All students of country life point out 
that it has one large advantage over city 
life. The small community, especially 
when rural in character, makes it easy for 
the developing youth to obtain direct ex- 
perience with nature. In the city the 
greater amount of experience is with per- 
sons. Persons may be tricked. Persons 
may be manipulated. Quick results, at 
least for a time, may be obtained by sug- 
gestions. It becomes easy, therefore, for 
the city-dweller to discount reality, to for- 
get the fact that all of life is governed by 
law. In the country the direct and per- 
sonal contact with nature teaches one that 
substantial results can be had only by 
knowledge of methods and honest effort. 
Nature cannot be deceived and is not in- 
fluenced by words or methods of sug- 
gestion. 



32 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

This appreciation of the lawful character 
of all life, this knowledge that what a man 
sows that must he reap, has a very large 
value in moral training. It is a hard lesson 
and man tries not to learn it. In the city 
he may deceive himself into believing it is 
not always true. In the country, however, 
at every point the truth is forced upon him. 

This moral resource also the church needs 
to use to the uttermost. There is no deeper 
moral truth. It is surely an advantage to 
the moral teacher to have an environment 
that enforces such an important truth at 
every point. The church can make con- 
stant use of this common experience to 
make life serious and worthy. In this 
direct contact with a nature which is law- 
ful, the church has in the small community 
a moral assistance of the greatest value. 



Ill 

THE MINISTER OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
SERVATION OF HIS SOCIAL EX- 
PERIENCES 

In writing of the work of a bishop, John 
Ruskin once said: his first duty is "at least 
to put himself in a position in which, at 
any moment, he can obtain the history 
from childhood of every soul in his diocese, 
and of its present state. Down in that 
back street, Bill and Nancy, knocking each 
other's teeth out! Does the bishop know 
all about it? Has he his eye upon them? 
Has he had his eye upon them? Can he 
circumstantially explain how Bill got into 
the habit of beating Nancy about the head? 
If he cannot, he is no bishop. " The coun- 
try worker finds it easy to fulfil much of 
Ruskin's ideal. The trivial happenings 
of a locality are not difficult to know, but 
the causes of these events present a dif- 
ferent problem. To meet the need of 

33 



34 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

knowing "the present state" of the com- 
munity has arisen the rural survey. 

The survey is modern in a significant 
sense. Science, with its eagerness for trust- 
worthy information, and business, with its 
emphasis upon fact, both in these days en- 
force the value of a careful study of com- 
munity life. Everywhere in our social life 
mere opinion proves worthless and an in- 
creasing desire is felt for exact knowledge. 
Thoughtful people appreciate that com- 
munity progress requires a scientific basis 
for community comparison and competi- 
tion, such as the survey provides. The 
survey appeals to the rational, to the 
practical, to the scientific. It keeps no 
fellowship with exaggeration, mere senti- 
ment, or selfish exploitation. It is honest 
in its searching for truth and just in its 
statements. In the end it proves that 
frankness and knowledge do more for a 
community's prosperity than deceit or 
guesses, that the first duty of any com- 
munity is to know itself. 

The country has every need of com- 



THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 35 

munity study that the city has. The 
country problems are the great problems. 
In forces and opportunities the rural life 
has the first claim for attention and con- 
servation. The making of a rural survey 
also offers a satisfaction that the more 
complex and changing city life does not 
permit. Indeed, an authority on city sur- 
veys has recently said that the city survey 
should be made on the unit basis, one sec- 
tion at a time. The rural survey gives the 
best possible opportunity to test the re- 
sults of the social study by attempts to 
improve the country life. The city survey 
has been of great value; the rural survey 
must prove of even greater usefulness. 

With reference to content we have sur- 
veys of rural industries, specific rural prob- 
lems, and general community life. The 
rural survey most talked about is the study 
of the community in as great detail as pos- 
sible. There is real need, however, of sur- 
veys of particular industries and surveys of 
some specific part of the community life. 

A special problem that can best be met 



86 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

by a preliminary survey to discover actual 
conditions is that of the consolidated 
school. Difficult as such a problem often 
proves in actual practice when a com- 
munity is divided with reference to the 
proposition of consolidation, one can hardly 
question that the first safe step is to learn 
the exact facts with reference to the prob- 
lem. This usually is not the step first 
taken, but it is always the wise beginning. 
A survey needs to be made with fore- 
thought. The best possible preparation is 
a study, by a group of public-spirited and 
efficient citizens, of surveys that have been 
made and of the program of study that the 
particular community or industry demands. 
The ground to be covered, the methods to 
be followed, the organization of the survey, 
and the uses to be made of the completed 
work, all need to be carefully planned. The 
danger of having persons with prejudices, 
axes to grind, or theories to defend engage 
in a survey, will be appreciated by anyone 
with experience. The reformer needs first 
to be the student, and the exploiter must 



THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 37 

be converted to the responsibilities of se- 
rious investigation. 

The organization of the survey is of large 
importance. It is possible to obtain ex- 
perts who will take entire charge of the 
project. For most places this is impracti- 
cal. Indeed, there are some real advantages 
in having the survey made by citizens of 
the locality. Many ministers deserve great 
credit for the interest that they have taken 
in rural surveys that already have been 
made. However, the making of rural sur- 
veys, without assistance from public- 
spirited citizens, ought not to be forced 
upon country ministers. Men in business 
in rural places sometimes make the serious 
mistake of not being really interested in 
community prosperity and welfare. Live 
country business men of foresight will ap- 
preciate the opportunity that cooperation 
in community study necessarily brings. 
The very best results of survey organiza- 
tion can probably be obtained by a com- 
mittee, catholic in spirit, representative of 
the community, not too large to work, and 



38 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

willing to delegate parts of the investiga- 
tion to persons best fitted to obtain the 
necessary information. The educational 
results that are bound to come to those who 
seriously attempt to study the life of a 
rural community prove of unexpected and 
permanent value. 

Makers of rural surveys in the past have 
given too little attention to the problem of 
publicity. A survey is made for use. A 
rural survey needs most of all to be appreci- 
ated by the people of the community that 
has been studied. It cannot have its full 
success if it appeals only to the rural soci- 
ologist and means next to nothing to those 
who are personally most interested. It is 
clear, therefore, that the rural survey needs 
modern advertising and they who are en- 
gaged in making it should study the prob- 
lem of making it popular. Merely to print 
results in pamphlet form is to waste human 
energy. A committee ought to have in 
hand the problem of publicity. Churches, 
papers, farmers' organizations should be 
urged to help make the results of the in- 



THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 39 

vestigation known. The weekly paper 
should be asked to print parts of the sur- 
vey in various issues. Of course it will be 
printed as a pamphlet for free distribution. 
Even here a mistake in the form in which 
it is printed will decrease its value. Not 
in small type on poor paper, but in as at- 
tractive a manner as possible, it ought to 
be spread broadcast among the people it 
concerns. 

The usual rural survey is of great value. 
A better investigation, however, is one that 
is made again and again. The community 
becomes self-conscious of its progress and 
confident of its strength if it know r s from 
time to time that it is making improve- 
ments and gaining social efficiency. A 
careful survey deserves to be continued 
from period to period. A rural survey 
that is never followed by later investiga- 
tion must lose in scientific and practical 
value. The problems of today will not 
remain those of tomorrow. A rural survey 
reports, not a dead thing, but a growing, 
changing life of human beings. Even the 



40 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

best rural survey will lose its right to au- 
thority with the passing of time. 

The purpose and character of the survey 
must determine what it shall contain. The 
general community study should be very 
broad. In it should be found all possible 
information that has social value. Ex- 
perience teaches that one cannot know in 
advance how valuable a certain gathering 
of facts may prove. It is easier to discard 
useless information than it is to repeat the 
investigation to obtain some valuable 
knowledge neglected during the first sur- 
vey. 

A very complete and suggestive outline 
for a general survey is published in Gil- 
lette's "Constructive Rural Sociology"— a 
book that everyone interested in rural 
problems needs to own. The Russell Sage 
Foundation has a department prepared to 
give information concerning the making of 
social surveys. The Presbyterian Board of 
Home Missions undertakes the making of 
rural surveys and has on file excellent rural 
surveys that already have been made. 



THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 41 

Probably in no way can the minister of 
the church of the small community better 
conserve his social experiences than by his 
study of rural surveys and his interest in 
the surveying of his own field of labor. 
The minister who cares little for such con- 
structive efforts is not likely to influence 
very deeply or for long the community 
which he attempts to serve. The rural 
survey is not a cure-all for every social 
difficulty in the country, but it fulfils a 
very useful function in helping the rural 
worker understand his problems. It is a 
modern tool for ministerial service, of great 
value when properly used. 

Besides the rural survey in its usual 
form, there is another opportunity that 
comes to the rural worker in his effort to 
know the present state of his field, and 
that is the possibility of keeping for a 
term of years significant statistics. The 
patient, care-taking recorder of definite 
social facts, chosen because of personal 
interest or local importance, can hardly 
fail to make a valuable contribution to the 



42 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

science of rural sociology. Indeed, it is 
the present weakness of this science that 
it has not a larger amount of social statis- 
tics gathered with scientific precision by in- 
terested workers. Without a large body of 
such observations, rural sociology cannot 
take its proper place as an instrument of 
progress. 

Recently when a gathering of rural work- 
ers were asked whether they had a rather 
definite knowledge of social and moral con- 
ditions in their several communities they 
all responded affirmatively and with con- 
fidence, but when questions calling for 
specific knowledge were asked nearly all 
at once admitted their ignorance. What 
was the death rate of the community for 
the past year? What had been the record 
of the community respecting typhoid dur- 
ing a period of ten years? How many ille- 
gitimate children had been born during the 
year? Such questions could not be an- 
swered. Although the religious worker 
lives in a world of law, and has to do with 
moral forces governed by laws, it is natural 



THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 43 

for him, because of his religious interests 
and his lack of scientific training, to neg- 
lect a study of the laws that are operating 
socially in his field of labor and the events 
that are often both the causes and results 
of community conditions. 

Every social worker in the country, nev- 
ertheless, has good reason not to neglect a 
study of social forces. In the making of 
such a study he will do wisely, moreover, 
not to trust memory to make comparisons 
between periods and places, but to make 
written records, realizing that memory is 
fallible because of the very nature of its 
habits. In keeping statistics, for a con- 
siderable period, of things that seem to 
him useful to know and study, the rural 
worker, besides adding to his information, 
develops an attitude of mind which tends 
to make him expect moral forces to produce 
results. A ministerial friend recently re- 
gretted that he had not continued during 
his five-year stay in a Massachusetts parish 
to keep a careful record of the careers of the 
institutional children placed out in that 



44 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

country town. Many children were placed 
in families in his community, and he had a 
very decided opinion concerning the ad- 
vantages of such a system of charity and 
the good contribution made by the chil- 
dren to the social life of the place; but he 
had to admit that he had no scientific or 
satisfactory basis for his opinion. 

Of course some time is required for such 
a record keeping and time is precious. 
However, one is sure of getting as a by- 
product of one's labor a mental habit of 
observing causally and of judging critically 
the products of social activity. The min- 
ister cannot record the histories of the 
children who are placed in the life of his 
community from institutions, without a 
new concern in regard to their welfare. 
Business appreciates this habit of mind be- 
cause it is necessary to business efficiency, 
and there are signs that religious workers 
must become modern in this important 
particular. Gill deserves credit for his 
method of study in Gill and Pinchot's 
"The Country Church." Rural sociology 



THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 45 

can never perform its proper service until, 
in addition to the investigation of rural 
problems by government experts and col- 
lege professors, country ministers and 
teachers, for a period of years, record ob- 
servations in such manner as to justify 
publication for scientific uses. 



IV 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
SERVATION OF COMMUNITY 
SPIRIT 

Nothing more clearly reveals the heart 
of a community than its opinion of itself. 
Community self-respect is not less im- 
portant than that of the individual, for 
when a society loses its confidence in its 
better self, it loses all hope. The church is 
vitally interested hi the character of the 
community mind, since, in a very deep 
sense, the church must assume consider- 
able responsibility for whatever has become 
characteristic of the community to which it 
ministers. The church also recognizes, in 
proportion to the clearness with which it 
faces its social opportunity, that by in- 
fluencing public opinion it is able most 
deeply to enter the life of the community. 

Public spirit in any community is largely 
a matter of leadership. The strong men 

46 






COMMUNITY SPIRIT 47 

and women, whether their strength be used 
for good or evil, make the village what it 
is. It is the social business of the church 
to furnish proper leadership and to train 
and inspire it. The church also is in duty 
bound to prepare its people by educational 
and moral instruction for a hearty support 
of wholesome leadership. 

How quickly at times the stranger can 
feel the community atmosphere! Its dis- 
tinctive characteristics are soon realized 
and their importance recognized. In a cer- 
tain New England community the general 
feeling of discouragement would impress 
the least sensitive visitor. Courage appears 
dead. It is no surprise to hear it said 
everywhere, "No young man who is good 
for anything remains here." 

Not merely is the church greatly inter- 
ested in the mood of the community; in a 
most real sense in such a mood the church 
may discover its own social value. Years 
of Christian teaching surely ought to make 
some impression upon the general thought 
of the community. Unless uncommon 



48 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

economic changes have disrupted the nor- 
mal life of the people, the prevailing atti- 
tude of mind in a community reveals the 
quality of the social influence of the 
church. 

A difficulty in the past has been the waste 
of personal influence for community pro- 
gress as a result of the narrow interpreta- 
tion of the social obligation of the church. 
Strong men and women who were by na- 
ture made leaders have often not been 
enlisted by the church in efforts for com- 
munity progress. In some places at least 
the welfare of the church itself, in a most 
institutional and selfish sense, has been the 
obligation pressed forward, and there has 
been no heroic response. In traveling 
about, one sometimes finds a community 
where some helpful social enterprise has 
been carried out with success by persons 
who have received little support from the 
churches and who have recognized little in 
common with the churches, having taken 
their isolation as a matter of course. The 
church of the small community fails so- 



COMMUNITY SPIRIT 49 

cially when it is not catholic enough to con- 
tribute liberally of its influence in specific 
encouragement of any movement for social 
betterment, whether community-organized 
or church-controlled. 

In his attack upon social evils and his 
impatience with unwholesome conditions, 
the pastor of the village and country church 
needs ever to be most careful that he does 
not destroy community self-respect. De- 
structive criticism may be both honest and 
just without being wise. Merely to be 
right is by no means enough. Nothing re- 
quires greater skill, more knowledge of 
human nature, more unselfish thinking, 
than criticism and denunciation. The 
promise of better things is based upon 
proper community pride, and the whole 
matter is made hopeless if the effort for 
reform kills the respect of the community 
for itself. It is especially important to 
realize that the first effect of such criticism 
may not disclose its deeper result. It is 
possible to stir protests and win approval 
and yet poison the sources of effective 



50 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

reconstruction. The safe method em- 
phasizes what may be as well as declares 
what is. Indirect criticism is more profit- 
able and lasting, even if direct denuncia- 
tion stings more. The community may 
come to accept the unhappy picture drawn 
of it as its true likeness and give up all 
social ambition. In the process of what is 
often really mere fault-finding, the pastor 
may destroy the basis of confidence, en- 
thusiasm, and courage which he needs for 
reconstruction. 

The church of the small community may 
conserve public spirit by emphasis upon 
the resources of the community. The 
people should be made conscious of every 
important element that enters their social 
life. Especially ought they to be made 
familiar with the past history of the com- 
munity. It is useless to expect wholesome 
community pride when nothing is given 
upon which to build pride. Some of the 
least enterprising of our small communities 
have had in times past a most interesting 
history. The just recognition of impor- 



COMMUNITY SPIRIT 51 

tant historical events, of former inhabitants 
of power, fame, and character, provides 
substance for the growth of good, social 
self-respect. Is it not wisdom for the 
church of the small community to devote 
at least one Sunday a year to a considera- 
tion of the history and traditions of the 
locality? 

Surely such a church ought not to end 
a year without giving over one Sunday to 
the consideration of the progress the com- 
munity has made during the year. Noth- 
ing will do more to develop concrete social 
thinking among church people than a com- 
munity progress Sunday. Upon such a 
day attention is focused upon the com- 
munity successes, partial or complete, upon 
the evident achievements of the people of 
the place in various departments of social 
life. This custom in any community in 
a term of years will prove helpful, because 
it tends to social construction and confi- 
dence. 

An open forum for an evening Sunday 
service, even in some small communities, 



5% COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

has proven a successful means of making 
the community socially self-conscious and 
critical without becoming well-satisfied or 
pessimistic. It gives the forward view and 
provides for progress, just as appreciation 
of the past strengthens community self- 
respect. Probably no social effort yields 
more various by-products of lasting value 
than an interesting open forum. In the 
period for questions it has the democratic 
element which is lacking in the usual ad- 
dress or lecture and it is thereby made 
more impressive. 

Some small communities need especially 
to consider the immigrant that has entered 
its life. He is sometimes left outside the 
socializing spirit of the community. This 
causes social loss — at times serious. The 
future of any community may really be 
in the hands of such people and it is folly 
to ask the public school by itself to meet 
the obligation that rests upon all the na- 
tive Americans. The church that wishes to 
help the immigrants often will find that 
first of all it must educate its own people 



COMMUNITY SPIRIT 53 

to appreciate and respect the new-comers. 
This is no difficult task. Every national 
type of human being has worth enough to 
be valued if rightly understood. The work 
of the church may be to interpret the his- 
tory and characteristics of the immigrants, 
that the community life may be organic 
and Christian. 

No pastor seriously undertakes social 
service in the small community without 
soon finding that such a community by 
itself is seriously limited. Important 
changes that will build up wholesome 
spirit in our smaller villages and rural 
places require the cooperation of several 
communities. This is most clearly seen in 
the problem of recreation and entertain- 
ment, but at present few are socially edu- 
cated to the point of realizing this. The 
social efforts of progressive churches are 
developing a new need of cooperation, a 
cooperation between communities. Men 
are eager to learn of the experiences of 
other communities. Enterprises are being 
considered that can be successfully carried 



54 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 



out only by community cooperation, since 
they are too costly for one locality to un- 
dertake. An example of this is the attempt 
of some village churches to find a way to 
make use of the motion picture for con- 
structive purposes. This need of a new 
kind of cooperation is a most promising 
fact. Communities may learn of one 
another how skilfully to employ their 
moral forces and may enter into helpful 
cooperation and wholesome rivalry in the 
conservation of community resources. 



V 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
SERVATION OF THE FAMILY 

In these modern days the family finds 
its largest opportunity in the country. 
Urban social conditions hamper the healthy 
functioning of the home and limit its effi- 
ciency. One of the most important ad- 
vantages offered those living in the coun- 
try as compared with those in the city is 
the greater opportunity provided for fam- 
ily association. Members of the family 
more easily realize their common interests. 
More time is spent together, resulting, 
under favorable circumstances, in a richer 
fellowship than city people easily obtain. 
Family failures are very apparent in the 
country, and the influence of the family is 
usually most significant. It is right, there- 
fore, to regard the family as a great social 
resource in the country and to insist that 

55 



56 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

its conservation should be eagerly desired 
by all who have rural welfare at heart. It 
is impossible to consider seriously the work 
of the country church, the social ministra- 
tion of religion, without giving thought to 
the problems of the family in their relation 
to the church. 

When the church assumes concrete tasks, 
and, with the spirit of social passion, covets 
powerful social resources, it turns, as by 
instinct, to the family as one of its great- 
est instruments for service. When on the 
other hand it undertakes its mission with 
spiritual and moral lassitude, it seldom dis- 
covers definitely and significantly how 
much of its ethical and religious oppor- 
tunity centers in the home. The church 
that conceives itself as the envoy of truth, 
goodness, and beauty soon uncovers the 
potential value of the family as a social 
organization in the country. Enlisting 
earnest lovers of truth in fruitful quests 
for the great ideals of life requires atten- 
tion to family conditions. Bringing good- 
ness into the ordinary life where it can 



CONSERVATION OF THE FAMILY 57 

prosper and win vitality demands that the 
family shall receive its rightful recognition 
as a source of ethical causes that quickly 
show themselves in conduct. Disclosing 
the sweetness and health that come from 
seeing beauty in common things is a task 
that needs the cooperation of deep, sym- 
pathetic, inspiring family association. It is 
the mark of the conscientious church that 
it thinks of its mission in family terms, 
that it expects to find difficulties and re- 
sources as the result of family influences. 

Neglect of the family weakens the 
church. By failure to realize concretely 
the family's social importance, the church 
often attacks blindly some obvious evih 
Individuals are seldom understood cor- 
rectly apart from family training. Openly 
defiant wickedness feeds upon unwhole- 
some family conditions, drawing its vigor 
largely from the weaknesses, ignorance, 
and selfishness of parents. It is useless to 
attempt social reform by merely trying to 
reconstruct individual motives and to cor- 
rect personal conduct. The great fountain 



58 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

of evil needs specific attention. It is in its 
failure clearly to analyze problems of con- 
duct into their elementary influences that 
the church often fails in effectiveness. 
That the bad family poisons life is com- 
mon thought indeed. A penetration into 
the way that a definite home is proving a 
social menace is far from common. A 
specific treatment of the ills of the family, 
after an analysis carried through with 
scientific precision, is most unusual; and 
yet such painstaking diagnosis enables the 
church to conserve its moral efforts and to 
multiply its successes. 

It is a striking fact, that has not been 
sufficiently pondered upon by religious 
people, that social improvement cannot be 
permanent when the family does not re- 
ceive great emphasis as a fundamental fac- 
tor in any social situation. Persuasion and 
inspiration may stimulate the individual, 
but no activity can lift up a social group 
for any length of time that does not appre- 
ciate the strategic value of the family. 
The family advance measures the real pro- 



CONSERVATION OF THE FAMILY 59 

gress of the movement, and registers the 
success of the reformation. There is a 
temptation felt by all morally earnest peo- 
ple in enthusiastic social service to treat 
individuals as detached from their homes. 
It is easier to rescue from the home than to 
rescue the home from its misfortune. Al- 
though such service brings immediate re- 
turns, and occasionally most gratifying 
success, it is clear to the thoughtful social 
worker that abiding ethical advance re- 
quires the improving of the family. This 
is especially true in the small community, 
because of the enormous functions that the 
family still performs. The church that 
craves efficiency in things that count and 
that wishes to do service that wins lasting 
results will surely consider the family ele- 
ment in every social and moral problem. 

The church in the small community has 
no greater need than to teach its constit- 
uency to assume specific moral service. 
Human progress depends at present most 
of all upon getting good purposes expressed 
in actual service. This is certainly pro- 



60 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

f oundly true of the people who come con- 
stantly under the influence of the Chris- 
tian churches. There is more goodness at 
hand than is being utilized in efforts really 
significant. Any attempt to bring good 
people face to face with concrete responsi- 
bility that involves causal influences is most 
wholesome. When the church of the small 
community treats the family as a training 
school for loyalty to responsibility, it min- 
isters to a great need in the lives of well- 
meaning people. It directs the attention 
of spiritually ambitious men and women to 
immediate opportunities for magnificent 
service in the home. The family becomes 
a mission field and the parent a missionary. 
The child, awakening to cravings of his 
deeper moral nature, is shown that the 
home is the first testing-place for his new 
ideals, the proper place for honest pur- 
poses to become actualized. The condition 
of the family life in the small community 
makes the emphasis of the moral meaning 
of the home most natural. He who faces 
things as they are and is morally sincere, 



CONSERVATION OF THE FAMILY 61 

grants, as he looks over the situation in 
the small community, that the family is 
the proper place for moral responsibility to 
assume its obligations, at least a very 
necessary place for moral effort. The 
home has always had a large social func- 
tion as a school for morals, and it is the 
business of the church in the small com- 
munity to make full use of so great an 
instrument. 

There can be no doubt that any effort 
on the part of the church to consider, its 
service in the community with special ref- 
erence to family needs, in the spirit of 
science, with regard to the operation of 
cause and effect, means the enriching of 
the inspirational efforts of the organiza- 
tion. Preaching fails to carry force often 
because it is so subjective. It describes 
qualities that are desirable and emphasizes 
methods of obtaining these qualities only 
in a verbal way. The objective manner of 
thinking on the part of the scientist, who 
detects conditions and precisely adminis- 
ters what the occasion demands, is not un- 



6£ COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

commonly absent from the sermon. In an 
age when the people are increasingly being 
trained to take an objective and causal 
view of problems, and when practicality is 
a virtue, the subjective exhortation ceases 
to carry conviction. The pastor of the 
country church who treats moral difficul- 
ties from a causal point of view, and who 
studies the family life as a source of moral 
causes, gets into his sermons the same 
concreteness that has become a part of 
his personality. IJe never covers his un- 
willingness or his inability to think his 
moral problems down to their fundamental 
elements by the use of such an abstract 
term as "sin/* The vocabulary even of 
the sermon is protected from a mere emo- 
tional meaning — a result that follows the 
use of general ideas — and is characterized 
by specific thinking that naturally leads to 
concrete activity. Such preaching com- 
mands attention. 

The church of the small community at 
times assumes a dangerous policy toward 
the family. The church finds itself con- 



CONSERVATION OF THE FAMILY 63 

fronted with the sad fact that the family 
life is far from reasonable efficiency, this 
failure resulting in the neglect of the needs 
of the children at important points. It 
faces a situation and not a theory, and is 
therefore deeply tempted to meet the prob- 
lem by methods that will bring immediate 
relief. Unconsciously it undertakes to fill 
up the void that the family failures are 
creating in the lives of children and youth. 
The profound fact is that the family is re- 
lieved often in this way of much of its 
responsibility. If the school and church 
are eager to assume obligations that the 
home fails to meet, it is natural for the 
home to be contented in spite. of its in- 
efficiency. And yet the home is made 
healthy only by trying to meet its serious 
responsibilities. Parents respond with an 
easy conscience to the invitation to give 
over some of their proper obligations, and 
thus new needs are created for the school 
and church to attempt to satisfy. The end 
of such an evolution may be the elimination 
of the home as an efficient social organiza- 



64 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

tion. When the attack that is foreshad- 
owed by many currents in present-day 
thinking is made upon the home, its de- 
fenders may find that it has already lost 
much from its important functions. It is 
bad business for the church to rob the 
home of any of its responsibility by a 
benevolent effort to fill the void that fam- 
ily carelessness is causing. The slower but 
wiser policy calls for a heroic attempt to 
invigorate the family, and to make it 
morally self-supporting. This does not, of 
course, mean that the church should not 
work with children; it means that such 
work must not be a method of relieving 
the home of service it is equipped to 
perform. 

The church must teach the adults that 
the home cannot safely attempt to farm 
out its proper responsibilities to any social 
organization whatsoever. Conditions in 
the small community make it possible for 
such teaching to obtain significant results. 
The home is by no means hopelessly out- 
rivaled; it still has courage to assume its 



CONSERVATION OF THE FAMILY 65 

normal tasks. It is easy indeed, however, 
for the church to encourage the parents in 
their thinking that a larger and larger part 
of the life of the children must be given 
over to experts who work through special 
institutions or to persons who have special 
gifts with children. Home-love is still the 
chief need of the child — intelligent affec- 
tion. The church of the small community 
proves its wisdom when it works through 
the home rather than for the home. 



VI 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
SERVATION OF RECREATION 

There is a very general and an increasing 
recognition of the need of providing rural 
young people with opportunities for whole- 
some play, and it promises happier and 
healthier days for country youth. This 
does not mean, of course, that the demand 
for play is something modern. Indeed, the 
facts are otherwise. Man has been a 
player from the beginning. Even animals 
play. The savage also gives his testimony 
regarding the great human need of play, 
for, however brutal his habits and low his 
standard of living, he plays, plays a great 
deal, and finds in his play a deep satisfac- 
tion, and the gain from his play is not 
altogether personal, for in primitive life 
play performs a most important social ser- 
vice. Although there have been days in 
the past when play has been called wicked 



CONSERVATION OF RECREATION 67 

frivolity, yet even at such times men have 
needed recreation and have found it, con- 
trary to their theory, in their religious ac- 
tivities in such forms as festivities, pa- 
geants, and passion plays. 

Although play is not by any means a 
modern invention, nevertheless we are just 
beginning to understand its social value. 
It has in recent times been too much 
thought of as significant only for the pleas- 
ure of the individual. Since it has been 
highly organized and commercialized, how- 
ever, recreation has appeared in its true 
light. Thinking people have been forced 
to see that play is a great social influence, 
a most potent factor in building or de- 
stroying character, and, since the appetite 
for play is stimulated by all the skill at the 
command of great modern business or- 
ganizations, it is being clearly understood 
that the child, if society is to be whole- 
some, must be protected and guided in his 
play. The church, therefore, is not indif- 
ferent to the problem of recreation, and 
especially is this true of the efficient church 



68 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

in the country and small community. Con- 
ditions of modern life, requiring relief and 
recuperation from nervous strain, demand 
play increasingly in some form for adults, 
and it is no longer possible to consider the 
recreation problem in either city or coun- 
try as merely having to do with the wel- 
fare of children. Play, therefore, has be- 
come a community problem, and one that 
has to do with the interests of all the peo- 
ple of the community. 

The church in the small community has, 
or at least may have, much influence upon 
the recreation of the community and its 
responsibility is in proportion to its oppor- 
tunity. It may, of course, as churches at 
times have — happily not often of late — set 
itself in opposition to recreation. In pleas- 
ure, however clean and wholesome, refresh- 
ing and socializing, it may see merely a 
trivial attitude, a frivolous spirit. It may, 
though fortunately it seldom does, look 
upon all play as an enemy of serious moral 
character, and may frown upon amusement 
at every opportunity. This attitude on the 






CONSERVATION OF RECREATION 69 

part of the church creates, in the degree 
that it is successful, a void in the life of the 
people, especially of the young, and by sad 
experience wise people have discovered that 
such an emptiness not seldom becomes a 
source of moral corruption. Rural social 
history has proven that, when the church 
has been hostile toward recreation, amuse- 
ment has become an instrument in the 
hands of the evil forces and an instrument 
of power over young life. The church, also 
in times past, because of its proper opposi- 
tion to unwholesome amusements, has for- 
gotten the need of replacing evil recreation 
with good, and has been content with 
merely denouncing that for which a sub- 
stitute needed to be found. 

A more common mistake on the part of 
the church of the small community has 
been a practical indifference to recrea- 
tional needs. The church has failed to 
appreciate in such cases the importance 
that amusement has as a source of moral, 
social influence. Perhaps the problem of 
evil recreation has been talked about; it 



70 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

may even have become a source of worry, 
but no effective action in regard to the 
matter has been carried out. Good peo- 
ple have forgotten that the power for evil 
contained in bad amusements is clear proof 
of the great social service that proper 
recreation may perform. 

The only right attitude for a Christian 
church to take toward recreation is that 
of sympathy and support. It is in duty 
bound to appreciate so great a source of 
social influence, and to attempt its pro- 
tection from the preying selfishness of com- 
mercial exploitation. Its mission in society 
is best accomplished by its taking strategic 
possession of the places where human char- 
acter is most naturally and profoundly in- 
fluenced, and certainly one such place is 
recreation. 

When the church of the small community 
assumes the proper attitude toward the 
problem, it is called upon to study how to 
make its influence count. It often awakens 
to the fact — and it is real spiritual heroism 
to admit the situation — that its influence 



CONSERVATION OF RECREATION 71 

upon the community recreations is very lit- 
tle; indeed, it may discover that it has not 
even realized the character of some of the 
most significant recreations that have got- 
ten into the community life. 

In its attempt to meet the recreation 
problem, the church faces the question 
whether it must itself provide wholesome 
recreation. The answer depends upon cir- 
cumstances. In most cases it is safer and 
wiser for the church to inspire other or- 
ganizations to take over the problem. In 
such cases the church best serves by its 
teaching. There are advantages in the 
school becoming the recreational center, or 
in some new organization being created to 
meet the specific problem. The church can 
then assume the responsibility of keeping 
the community interested, in developing 
the craving for good forms of play. 

The distinctly rural church has the 
largest opportunity along these lines of 
service at present, because it can so 
quickly make its influence count. The 
rural young people are most likely to suffer 



n COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

from a lack of proper recreation. The 
church is fortunate that can turn to the 
Young Men's Christian Association for ex- 
pert help in solving the recreation problem 
of the community. When there are sev- 
eral churches in the same community, there 
is the greatest need of constructive work 
being carried on by an organization that 
can unite all the Christian organizations in 
a common social service. It is most unfor- 
tunate in such circumstances if each church 
strives to organize recreation for its own 
people by itself. 

The mistake is still being made in many 
small villages and country places of think- 
ing of play as a need only for the young 
people and children. In rural life espe- 
cially, emphasis must be placed upon adult 
recreation. Social health, mental vigor, 
moral sanity, demand more play, more 
freedom, more relief from labor for adults 
living and working in the country. Often 
rest from labor means cheap dissipation or 
empty idleness. A great social vitalizing 
experience is thrown away because no ef- 



CONSERVATION OF RECREATION 73 

fort is made to conserve adult recreational 
needs. 

It is not strange to hear the failure of 
cooperation among rural people charged up 
to their lack of play experience. We have 
every reason to regard the statement seri- 
ously, for play teaches cooperation and 
creates friendly feeling as few things can. 
It certainly seems true in some rural places 
that there is less neighborhood recreation 
and fellowship than there formerly was. 
There has perhaps been created a taste for 
urban stimulating pleasures and a failure to 
realize the neighborhood opportunities that 
contain deeper satisfactions than the city 
affords. Here and there we find foolish 
efforts to import the city amusements into 
the country rather than an honest effort to 
discover the possibilities of the country it- 
self. In the end the country must find its 
own joys or grow barren. 

There appears to be one form of recrea- 
tion that churches in small villages and 
rural places ought to encourage greatly, 
and that is reading and study clubs. It is 



74 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

no secret that some of our most serious 
readers are not in the cities, but in the 
country. The conditions of rural life tend 
to deepen the impression of whatever is 
read. It is a great pity that often the 
reading is of little worth because the ma- 
terial itself has almost no value. Serious 
reading of trivial, perhaps cheap, literature 
represents a very great loss, and the com- 
munity church needs to conserve the men- 
tal cravings of its people. There is need of 
more study and reading clubs in the coun- 
try — the getting together of people who like 
to read along similar lines that they may 
profit from their intellectual fellowship. 
The splendid success of such organizations 
in some rural towns, often as a result of the 
influence of the pastor of a church, proves 
how very valuable this mental form of rec- 
reation may prove in the social life of 
country people. 



VII 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL COM- 
MUNITY AND THE CONSERVA- 
TION OF PHYSICAL HEALTH 

The country has the conditions of health. 
Rural health, nevertheless, is not in pro- 
portion to the opportunities offered by the 
wholesome environment of country people. 
There appears to be a difference of opinion 
respecting rural health as compared with 
that of urban people. An eminent statis- 
tician expresses the opinion that "the mor- 
tality-rates from all important diseases are 
measurably lower among American farmers 
than among numerous employments typi- 
cal of modern city life in the United States. 
The statistical evidence, therefore, is quite 
conclusive that in the registration area of 
the United States, which, however, excludes 
most of the rural sections of western and 
southern states, the mortality-rate from all 
causes combined, and from practically all 

75 



76 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

the important causes, is much less in the 
rural districts than in the cities/' 1 A report 
made for the United States Bureau of 
Education concerning a survey made of 
eight eastern states is said to give "over- 
whelming evidence against the healthful- 
ness of the country as compared with the 
city." 2 "The Wisconsin Anti-tuberculosis 
League, a year or so ago, made a very 
careful and exact sanitary survey of a 
certain rural district in that state, relative 
to the amount of this disease, and found 
that in some parts of this district the 
death-rate from tuberculosis exceeded that 
of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's largest city." 3 
In regard to one fact there is, however, 
general agreement — the health of rural peo- 
ple is not so great as it ought to be, in the 
light of the opportunities provided by the 
country for health. 

X F. L. Hoffmann, "Rural Health and Welfare," 
pp. 12, 9. 

2 Report of National Conference of Charities and 
Corrections 1914, p. 154. 

3 Bashore, "Overcrowding and Defective Housing in 
Rural Districts, ,, p. 88. 



PHYSICAL HEALTH 77 

Doubtless also there is little question 
that country people are less concerned 
with problems of health than they need to 
be. It is too often assumed without rea- 
son that rural conditions in regard to 
health are satisfactory enough not to re- 
quire community investigation. As a 
result, we have little public effort for 
improvement. In urban centers much 
progress is being made in the conservation 
of public health and there are equal mo- 
tives for cooperative effort in the country 
along the same lines. The country cannot 
safely rely upon its natural advantages. In 
such effort for improved conditions of living 
the church has a clear duty. It should lead. 

The church can be indifferent only be- 
cause of social ignorance. It confesses fatal 
narrowness of spiritual vision when it re- 
fuses to consider physical welfare as in- 
cluded in its community mission. It 
blinds itself to the far-reaching results of 
poor health, of harmful habits of living. 
Seldom indeed in these days can one find 
a church consciously assuming such a po- 



78 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

sition, but too frequently we find churches 
in the country that act as if they had little 
responsibility for the physical well-being of 
the people. 

The community-spirited church regards 
the problem of health as a moral matter. 
Unnecessary suffering and disease mean 
a loss to the community of its human 
resources. Human personality is too val- 
uable to be lost to the community as a 
result of unwholesome living conditions, 
brought about by public indifference, ig- 
norance, and selfishness. Suffering reduces 
human efficiency, it lowers the vitality of 
the contribution made to the community 
by the unfortunate sufferer. Suffering 
which results from conditions that are the 
expression of a low public intelligence and 
sense of responsibility becomes a moral 
matter by its very existence, for it is the 
business of the church to minister to whole- 
some happiness. 

Indeed, from a most narrow point of 
view, the church is interested in problems 
of health, for some diseases have a most 



PHYSICAL HEALTH 79 

definite moral significance. Consumption, 
for example, has often a most remarkable 
influence upon the sex life of the individual. 
Passion often becomes abnormally intense 
as a result of the development of tubercu- 
losis. Science shows also that alcoholism 
is at times the result of a diseased condi- 
tion of the body. Paresis, a nervous disease 
usually resulting from syphilis, often has a 
clear series of moral results of great social 
importance. A man of high social standing, 
of good reputation, perhaps a man of great 
service socially, begins suddenly to show a 
most unexplainable change in personal 
habits and in morals. He becomes a scan- 
dal in the community and perhaps as a 
consequence some church is brought into 
disrepute. And the entire moral change is 
merely a part of the symptoms of this ter- 
rible disease, paresis, caused by a syphilitic 
infection many years previously. Even 
when the church accepts little concrete re- 
sponsibility for the health of the com- 
munity, it has to take account of problems 
that are born of bad physical conditions. 



80 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

Modern science is making this relation be- 
tween morals and health increasingly clear. 
The efficient Christian church has in the 
small community a very definite and serious 
work that it ought to do for the health of 
the people. It surely ought to teach in 
concrete terms a proper respect for the 
body. This teaching cannot safely be lim- 
ited to instruction in regard to two or 
three physical vices. Respect for the body 
must be cultivated by attention to many 
facts concerning the needs, uses, and dan- 
gers of one's physical self. Some of this 
teaching may be undertaken wisely in co- 
operation with the doctor; some of it may 
be a by-product of an interesting and prac- 
tical sermon. Without doubt some in- 
struction should be carried on by special 
classes — perhaps as a part of the Sunday 
school work. Christianity teaches that the 
body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and 
no church can do its proper service in the 
small community when it does not concern 
itself thoughtfully and broadly with the 
physical welfare of the people. 



PHYSICAL HEALTH 81 

It is even necessary at the present time in 
many country places that country people 
be taught in an interesting and sane way 
the causes of some of the most important 
diseases. The church ought either to in- 
spire such an undertaking or assume the 
task itself. The sad story of lung houses, 
overcrowding, and insanitary conditions 
among rural people has been forcefully and 
briefly told by Dr. B ashore in his recent 
book, "Overcrowding and Defective Hous- 
ing in Rural Districts." These unnecessary 
conditions in the country demand very 
practical instruction. The church can eas- 
ily bring about some method by which 
this information respecting rural physical 
dangers and needs can be given and driven 
home. Rural people of intelligence are 
prone to consider bad houses and insani- 
tary conditions as individual problems. 
This is by no means true. Germs are no 
respecter of persons. Conditions that 
menace an individual or a family also en- 
danger the entire community. 

It is particularly important in the coun- 



82 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

try to study the physical needs of children. 
Infant mortality is a problem in the coun- 
try as certainly as in the city, and it must 
be solved in both places by publicity and 
education. The country school is very bad 
indeed with reference to its influence phys- 
ically upon the growing children, as no one 
can doubt who knows the rural school per- 
sonally. It is severe criticism, considering 
the physical resources of the country school, 
when Dr. Bashore affirms "that all city 
children, no matter what city or where, 
attend school under sanitary conditions far 
ahead of anything in the country/' This 
problem of the rural child and his school 
surroundings is a vital one for the church, 
for from the school come the human re- 
sources upon which the organization later 
must depend. Church indifference to the 
physical needs of the school condemns the 
church as socially inefficient and blind to 
its large moral mission. Many a school- 
man will contrast the city open-air school 
with the sickening atmosphere of some 
rural school which has never been forgotten 



PHYSICAL HEALTH 83 

because of the impression received upon 
visiting it. It is a sad and discouraging 
illustration of the character of some of our 
rural teaching that in such a school a 
limited amount of instruction regarding 
physical hygiene is required by the law of 
the state. 

Emphasis upon matters that concern 
public health is wholesome in teaching the 
people to undertake community self-ex- 
amination. Needs can be easily found and 
made forceful when they are physical in 
character. A community often turns from 
an honest self-examination at this point to 
the consideration . of matters equally im= 
portant, but not so easily seen. The 
church itself may study its social value by 
an investigation of public health conditions 
and its influence in reforming these. If it 
has no real public influence respecting such 
apparent needs, it may well question 
whether its spiritual service is deeply suc- 
cessful. Surely if it has no ability to make 
wholesome physical conditions, it cannot 
assume that it is a moral force in the com- 



84 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

munity. "If in the rural districts we can 
substitute common community activities 
for self-centered interests, kindliness for 
suspiciousness, helpfulness for indifference; 
if we can inspire a better spirit of coopera- 
tion in agricultural pursuits, in civic bet- 
terment, in home-making and child-raising; 
in other words, if we can bring to these 
people a wholesome knowledge of hygiene 
in the best understanding of the word, it 
will mean to them a richer, fuller life, ex- 
pressing itself in a generation of sound, 
healthy people." These words of a lover 
of country welfare contain a truth, but the 
better plan is to have a church of vision, 
courage, and social passion lead the people 
themselves to a higher standard of physical 
being. 

The honest church will at least attend to 
the health problems that center about its 
own building. There can be no great 
promise in a sermon on taking good care of 
the body preached to people who are 
breathing poison as a result of vicious in- 
difference to or ignorance of the matter of 



PHYSICAL HEALTH 85 

ventilation. He who has been invited to 
speak in a dirty church building, pointedly 
disclosing the character of an inefficient 
janitor and a careless people, will confess 
to a feeling of depression after looking 
about the building. The clean and the 
sanitary church building is a prerequisite to 
any successful effort for the bettering of 
public health conditions by the church. In 
conserving rural health resources, the 
church often awakens to the fact that it 
has itself been negligent with reference to 
its own institutional influence. 



VIII 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
SERVATION OF MENTAL 
HEALTH 

In our present social life the problem of 
mental abnormality looms large. Mental 
disorder, one of the most dangerous and 
pathetic of human afflictions, is becoming 
painfully frequent. Although we have rea- 
son to suppose that insanity is more com- 
mon in the city than in the country, it is, 
nevertheless, a serious problem for the 
country community. The layman, in 
thinking of mental abnormality, has in 
mind usually the idea of insanity ex- 
pressed in clear and forceful peculiarities 
of conduct. Because of this he often fails 
to appreciate a great many cases of mental 
unsoundness which express themselves in 
foolish, anti-social, or immoral behavior. 
The problem of mental health is larger 
than the problem of mental sanity in the 

86 



MENTAL HEALTH 87 

popular sense. The student of the mind is 
finding increasingly that mental instability 
is the real cause of problems of conduct 
that have been considered merely moral in 
character. 

All conduct, whether good or bad, is re- 
lated to mental states, and is therefore in- 
fluenced by the normality or abnormality 
of the mind. It is natural that unsound- 
ness of mind should express itself in ab- 
normal conduct of various forms. Modern 
science reveals the relation between mental 
disorder or instability and the unwhole- 
some conduct which is characteristic of 
the vicious and delinquent classes. It is 
clearly shown that there is a direct connec- 
tion between disordered mental condition 
and alcoholism, vagrancy, prostitution, 
pauperism, and crime. Studies of criminal 
classes are increasingly placing emphasis 
upon the mental abnormality which is the 
real cause of the anti-social conduct. In- 
vestigations made by experts in clinic psy- 
chology are changing the conception of the 
sociologist regarding crime. Science has, 



88 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

for example, recently made a statement 
very different from its earlier opinion con- 
cerning the causes of prostitution. 

The new significance that mental un- 
wholesomeness has in social life as a result 
of the modern teaching of science makes 
the whole problem of mind disorder of im- 
portance to the church of the small com- 
munity. The efficient church attempts to 
deal with its problems in the light of 
present knowledge and to treat every case 
from the viewpoint of causation. It fol- 
lows, therefore, that the church must give 
attention to the growing mental instability 
that produces so many of the concrete per- 
sonal misfortunes. Its interest in the re- 
sults of mental disorder forces it to take 
an intelligent interest in the cause itself. 

It might seem at first thought as if the 
church could do nothing to conserve the 
mind. Valuable as it would be for a clearer 
insight into the nature of certain moral 
difficulties, the knowledge of the signifi- 
cance of mental instability might seem of 
no greater use. This, however, is not true. 



MENTAL HEALTH 89 

The service of the church, especially in the 
small community, is necessarily related to 
the problem of mind conservation. It is 
clearly in the power of the church to do its 
part to lessen the tragedies of life that 
appear in the form of mind disease. On 
the other hand, who can doubt that care- 
less and unwholesome church activity adds 
somewhat to the influences that operate to 
increase mind disorder? 

Troubles of the mind are often the result 
of bad habits. The expert makes much of 
the value of good training as a means of 
decreasing insanity and nervous diseases. 
The habits that the child forms or fails to 
form may decide years later whether the 
adult is to be mentally or nervously sound 
or not. It surprises the layman to hear 
the doctor insist that the relief of neuras- 
thenia largely depends upon the getting rid 
of bad habits and the creation of new 
habits. The significance of habit forma- 
tion in the conservation of the mind brings 
again to the attention of the church of the 
small community its relation to the home. 



90 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

Parents help to injure the mental health of 
their children because they do not under- 
stand the problem of child training. Often 
they merely lack an appreciation of the 
significance of the events of early child life. 
It would seem as if the church that covets 
service must find in the need of awakening 
the home to its responsibilities a very in- 
viting opportunity. 

There is one type of habit formation that 
the church especially needs to understand 
— the habit of day-dreaming. Thinking 
that satisfies the person without working 
itself out into real activity is dangerous by 
its very nature. Modern psychology, the 
Freudian psychology especially, makes this 
fact very clear. Insanity itself is at times 
the relief that an extreme kind of day- 
dreaming gives in contrast with the painful 
experiences of reality. The church needs 
to impress this fact, not only upon teach- 
ers and parents, but also upon its own 
conscience. The pastor especially must 
meditate upon the significance of the day- 
dreaming weakness in human life, for the 



MENTAL HEALTH 91 

church itself may be given to the day- 
dreaming tendency. Religion may be used 
to cover up an unwillingness to face real- 
ity, to meet the moral needs of the situa- 
tion. The minister must expect persons of 
mental instability to turn to religion for 
help. In such cases it is very necessary 
that the church really help. Selfishness 
often is the deep root of mental disorder 
and day-dreaming its fruit. Men and 
women who have neither the courage nor 
the unselfishness to face a hard situation 
turn to religion as an opportunity for the 
indulging of a pernicious kind of day- 
dreaming. Christianity has proven its 
moral supremacy in its refusal to cater to 
this peculiar kind of selfishness. The spirit 
of the church becomes unwholesome when 
encouragement is given, consciously or un- 
consciously, to this bad habit which satis- 
fies the desires of a person by the creations 
of fancy. On the other hand, in so far as 
the church insists upon ideals being carried 
to practice it decreases the danger that day- 
dreaming will become a community problem. 



92 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

The first steps toward mind unwhole- 
someness are sometimes taken in the effort 
to retreat from a hard personal ordeal. 
The individual turns his back upon reality 
because of lack of courage. The church 
often saves one from this danger by giving 
him a sense of the resources upon which he 
can call for help. The religious experience 
of the person becomes a source of confi- 
dence, and the tendency to give up the 
struggle by being satisfied with dreams of 
victory comes to an end. The personality 
is saved from moral ruin, perhaps from 
mental disorder. 

The church may perform the same ser- 
vice for those who suffer from morbid fears. 
Fear is the enemy of mental health. Fear 
often originates as a result of moral dis- 
order. Many times it starts in experiences 
in childhood that are not wisely treated by 
parents or that are concealed from parents. 
The wiser the parent, the less the danger of 
such an experience troubling the child. 
Wrong methods of moral teaching in the 
church, especially in the Sunday school, 



MENTAL HEALTH 93 

occasionally false teaching, are causes of 
morbid fears. It is usually true that these 
fears disappear when they are faced and 
become harmful only when the person at- 
tempts to run away from them. 

In so far as the church teaches a positive 
morality that leads men and women, boys 
and girls, to fight their moral battles, it 
decreases the tendency toward morbid 
fears. It is a surprise at first to the student 
of the problem how often a morbid fear 
expresses itself in anti-social or immoral 
conduct. 

Nothing conserves the mind so much as 
having a healthy interest in life. It is a 
splendid protection against both morbid 
feeling and morbid thinking. It keeps one 
from wishing to enjoy the poisonous pleas- 
ures of day-dreaming. It leads to whole- 
some activity. It invigorates the life and 
takes one's thought off one's self by oc- 
cupying the attention with captivating 
purposes. This fact the church cannot 
safely forget. The barren individual life 
needs the same treatment that the barren 



94 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

social life requires. A more interesting 
community life often saves people from 
losing their personal interest in normal ac- 
tivity. The life of the small community 
must be made vital in order to be whole- 
some. The individual who finds little in 
life to live for, who faces an uninviting 
situation, must be led to a deeper under- 
standing of the meaning of human ex- 
perience. 

In so far as the church lifts the moral 
standard of a community and decreases 
vice, it ministers to the mental well-being 
of the people. Immorality is very closely 
connected with mind disorder. The dis- 
solute life often expresses itself in insanity. 
This fact especially appears in the study of 
paresis, a brain disease which generally or- 
iginates from syphilitic infection. Alcohol- 
ism also is a cause of insanity. Drug habits 
lead to mental disorders. It is difficult to 
have a sound mind in a sound body unless 
the basis of both is made a sound morality. 
Self-control and high ideals may not always 
prevent insanity, but without doubt they 



MENTAL HEALTH 95 

are protective in their tendency and prob- 
ably in many cases guard the life with a 
somewhat neurotic heredity from serious 
mental difficulty. 



IX 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND THE PROB- 
LEM OF THE FEEBLE-MINDED 

A recent visit to a country school to give 
advice concerning two children who were 
charged with immoral conduct and who 
proved to be mentally defective emphasized 
anew the problem of moral segregation in 
the country community. City moral prob- 
lems, without doubt, because of their mas- 
sive characteristics are usually spectacular 
and easily attract the attention of students 
of social life. Moral problems in the coun- 
try are more likely to be underestimated 
because they usually appear as isolated and 
individual, without the magnitude that 
challenges investigation. Perhaps a just 
comparison between the moral dangers of 
urban life and those of rural life is both im- 
possible and unprofitable, but it is clear 
that the forms which moral problems take 
must differ somewhat in the two types of 



PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 97 

community life. The city parent has one 
advantage in meeting moral difficulties 
which seems of no small value to the 
thoughtful country father and mother. 
Urban conditions permit the more careful 
parents to segregate their children, at least 
to some degree, from immoral suggestions. 
If vice in the city is more organized and ex- 
ploited, it is also true that it need not 
touch so closely the life of the child as it 
must when it appears in the country. In 
the country, vice may be said to be more 
spontaneous and more personal, and for 
these reasons all the more dangerous to the 
naturally innocent. The vicious boy may 
be the only near playmate of the pure- 
minded girl. Their association in the same 
small class in school may make it the most 
natural thing in the world that they should 
walk home together after school. 

Even if the parents realize the moral 
dangers of this comradeship, it is hard to 
meet the problem. Any attempt to segre- 
gate the child from the evil association in- 
volves the possibility of neighborhood un- 



98 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

friendliness and misunderstanding, from 
which one naturally shrinks. The parents 
who have the courage to meet the problem 
without regard to neighborhood gossip and 
hostility often find that the attempted seg- 
regation is both difficult to maintain and 
dangerous in itself. The child is almost 
certain to become conscious of the situa- 
tion, which results in an unwholesome con- 
dition, and the vicious influence is generally 
militant in its effort to break through the 
barriers. It is, of course, by no means im- 
possible to meet the situation with success, 
but seldom easy. The urban mother may 
segregate her child without depriving it of 
companionship and without attracting pub- 
licity. Indeed, careful urban parents take 
for granted the necessity of a limited segre- 
gation of their children from the well- 
recognized moral dangers in the com- 
munity. In neither city nor country is the 
effort to protect the child certain of suc- 
cess, but in the country it is more difficult. 
The clearest illustration of the impor- 
tance of this problem of moral segregation 



PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 99 

in the country appears in the case of the 
defectives. Science teaches the very grave 
danger in any community life of children 
who are morally defective or who are mor- 
ally weak because they are mentally de- 
ficient. 

Dangerous as is the ament, or mental 
defective, anywhere, he is doubly so in the 
country, because he is less likely to be rec- 
ognized there than in the city, and he has 
greater opportunity to corrupt the normal 
because he is not seen in his true character. 
If the mentally deficient girl often becomes 
a prostitute in the city, we must not fail 
to see that her country sister is likely to 
poison the morals of an entire neighbor- 
hood and finally to become the mother of 
illegitimate children. The city usually es- 
capes the tainted offspring, because of the 
sterilizing effects of the prostitute's dis- 
eases. 

Country workers need to realize the diffi- 
culties of moral segregation in the small 
communities. Some parents admit that 
they have moved to town to escape the 



100 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

corrupting influence of bad children be- 
longing to a neighboring family. A great 
relief would come were it possible, at least, 
to discover the defectives early and remove 
them from the community. Science is 
waiting for the opportunity to protect so- 
ciety from the moral imbecile and the 
feeble-minded both in country and city, 
but little progress can be made until the 
public is educated to see the need of such 
protection. Education is required before 
the extent and the character of the prob- 
lem of the morally and mentally defective 
child in the country will be appreciated. 
It is important for the social worker in 
rural communities to think of the waste 
of moral forces caused by the effort to 
undo the evil started by the moral imbecile, 
by the hopeless effort to reform him. Rural 
moral forces are too precious to be spent 
for almost useless purposes, when greater 
knowledge would show the worker how to 
meet the situation more constructively. In 
most cases it is for the welfare of both 
society and the defective child himself that 



PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 101 

he be removed from association with nor- 
mal children. The significance of this fact 
will not be appreciated in the country, un- 
less all who influence rural public opinion 
discover its importance from personal ob- 
servation and bring it to the attention of 
the more thoughtful parents. And now is 
the opportune time. 

It would seem also as if the city must 
have some advantage over the country in 
the attempt to control amentia because of 
its greater effort to find the feeble-minded 
children of high grade by means of tests, 
clinic work, and the keener attention of 
teachers and officials to the retarded chil- 
dren. Without doubt in the cities the 
courts and the police also help to discover 
defective children of high grade, because in 
the cities it is so easy for such children to 
get in trouble in a way that brings them 
public attention. 

It is reasonable to assume that the 
greater competition in the cities tends to 
reveal mental deficiency that would be 
passed by without notice in the conditions 



102 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

of country life. In the country another 
difficulty is created by the unwillingness 
often of teachers and neighbors to give in- 
formation or to take the responsibility of 
making public charges respecting defective 
children, because in a small community 
everything in the way of criticism or com- 
plaint is so personal in character and is so 
likely to involve many persons, on account 
of the close relationships in the group, 
due to the marrying back and forth. Yet 
the ament in a rural school has the best 
opportunity to poison morally the children 
of an entire neighborhood, and this fact 
sometimes explains the immoral situation 
which the rural educator and field worker 
finds. 

The greatest problem of all in regard to 
the rural ament is the added menace such 
degeneration threatens because of the re- 
sults of rural migration. No greater coun- 
try problem exists than the condition that 
has been so well stated by Davenport: 
^'Likewise in the rural and the semi-rural 

1 Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, 211-212. 



PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 103 

population within a hundred miles of our 
great cities we find a disproportion of the 
indolent, the alcoholic, the feeble-minded, 
the ne'er-do-well. I know intimately sev- 
eral such localities and have seen in one 
family after another how the ambitious 
youth leave the parental roof-tree to try 
their fortunes in the city while the weakest 
young men stay behind, supported by their 
parents, or earning only enough to buy the 
liquor their defective natures crave, and are 
finally forced to marry a weak girl and 
father her imbecile offspring. Such vil- 
lages, depleted of the best, tend to become 
cradles of degeneracy and crime. " 

Society will surely be hampered in its 
progress unless the state adopts a policy 
which will not leave the ament to the 
indifference and misconception of the small 
community. We need not only the city 
psychological clinic; we need also the state 
clinic. The state department of public 
education should be prepared to hunt out 
the defective, and the state needs to be 
able to provide rational treatment for all 



104 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

defectives found. Such work must be car- 
ried on largely through the schools. Pro- 
fessor Pyle, in the Psychological Clinic for 
February, 1913, has drawn up a very in- 
teresting suggestion for the organization of 
rural clinic work by means of a state-wide 
examination of school children. No other 
policy promises to meet this problem. It 
may seem costly, but only to those who do 
not realize the burden of the feeble-minded 
who are without proper supervision. 

The rural ament will never receive de- 
served attention unless social workers are 
alive to the greatness of his needs. At this 
point those who realize the significance of 
the defective child must concentrate educa- 
tional effort. The demand for the state- 
wide clinic work along both physical and 
mental lines must come from the social 
workers, teachers, and school officials before 
the legislators can be expected to consider 
the matter seriously. The educating of 
schoolmen and schoolwomen in regard to 
the imperative character of this special 
problem is no hopeless undertaking. Al- 



PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 105 

ready a limited attention to such educating 
effort has accomplished wonders. 

From every side of the problem of amen- 
tia, science is showing that society cannot 
afford to ignore the feeble-minded. In so 
serious a matter the state must take a 
larger responsibility. The cost in social 
evils and in dollars of such cases as this 
reported by Dr. Fernald 2 is too great for 
the public to leave the small communities 
to meet the problem of amentia as best 
they can. "A feeble-minded girl of the 
higher grade was accepted as a pupil at 
the Massachusetts School for the Feeble- 
minded when she was fifteen years of age. 
At the last moment the mother refused to 
send her to the school, as she 'could not 
bear the disgrace of publicly admitting that 
she had a feeble-minded child.' Ten years 
later the girl was committed to the institu- 
tion by the court, after she had given birth 
to six illegitimate children, four of whom 
were still living and all feeble-minded. The 



2 "History of the Treatment of the Feeble-minded," 
p. 11. 



106 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

city where she lived had supported her at 
the almshouse for a period of several 
months at each confinement, and had been 
compelled to assume the burden of the life- 
long support of her progeny, and finally 
decided to place her in permanent custody. 
Her mother had died broken-hearted sev- 
eral years previously." 

A very aggressive attack upon the prob- 
lem of amentia in the country is certain to 
provide unexpected social relief along other 
lines. It is impossible to know how much 
the problem of the use of alcoholic drinks 
in the country is related to the problem of 
feeble-mindedness. When one has seen how 
strong the craving for intoxicants is among 
some country people, without the sugges- 
tions and constant temptations provided by 
the saloon industry in the cities, it is clear 
that much may be expected of any success- 
ful attack upon rural amentia in decreasing 
alcoholism. The problem of illegitimacy in 
the country is certainly in large measure a 
problem related to feeble-mindedness. The 
moral imbecile and the feeble-minded boy 



PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 107 

given to occasional fire-setting are a most 
serious menace. 

When this problem of rural amentia is 
more successfully met, a great economic 
gain also must result. The best propa- 
ganda carried on by experiment stations 
and agricultural colleges must fail in com- 
munities where a feeble-minded strain by 
close intermarriage has made nearly an en- 
tire community defective or abnormal, or 
has been a large cause of the constant loss 
of the ambitious youth, because of their 
eagerness to remove from such an unfavor- 
able social environment to a city having 
promise of better conditions. Progress in 
the control of rural amentia must surely 
conserve the resources of the various ac- 
tivities that are attempting to improve so- 
cial conditions in the country. Political 
exploitation also, in its different forms in 
rural communities, is tied up with amentia. 
The largest result, perhaps, of all which 
may be expected to follow an effective 
program respecting the country feeble- 
minded is the bringing of optimism into 



108 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

the lives of people in some country places 
who at present are possessed by a pes- 
simism which forms the largest obstacle to 
social and economic progress. 

The church of the small community in 
its effort to conserve country life must 
take to heart this fact of the danger of the 
ament in the country. Nothing will so 
certainly discourage the substantial stock 
in the country and so stimulate its move- 
ment to the cities as to permit the ament 
to thrive and enjoy freedom in the coun- 
try environment. The whole problem needs 
to be taken in hand by the forces of the 
state as a matter of efficient administration. 
Science has already furnished the informa- 
tion which justifies another step in the con- 
trol of amentia. The country needs the 
advantages of this new progress no less 
than the cities, as every student of rural 
moral problems must recognize. Like all 
such matters, it is mostly a problem in edu- 
cating people in the country. 



X 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
SERVATION OF BEAUTY 

Opportunities to realize beauty are 
among the great advantages of life in the 
country. The church of the small com- 
munity may assume a most beneficent so- 
cial ministration by interpreting these op- 
portunities to its people. Life sours and 
grows barren when the sense of beauty 
fades out of human experience. It is in- 
deed often true of the vision of nature's 
beauty— 

"At length the Man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day." 

Nothing in life fully compensates for so 
great a loss. It is as if through beauty we 
penetrated deepest into the eternal life in 
which "we live, and move, and have our 
being," and drew into our own little worlds 
the strength that nourishes all things. 
What Ruskin has said about the sky is 

109 



110 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

also true of all the glories of nature. 
"Bright as it is, it is not 'too bright, or 
good for human nature's daily food'; it is 
fitted in all its functions for the perpetual 
comfort and exalting of the heart, for 
soothing and purifying it from its dross 
and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes 
capricious, sometimes awful, never the 
same for two moments together; almost 
human in its passions, almost spiritual in 
its tenderness, almost divine in its infinity, 
its appeal to what is immortal in us is as 
distinct as its ministry of chastisement or 
of blessing to what is mortal is essential." 
He who lives in the open country may 
have fellowship with the very spirit of 
beauty. His daily work brings him con- 
stantly into the presence of scenes such as 
the artist delights to reproduce and make 
immortal. If only he has eyes to see he can 
enrich his soul with wealth that becomes 
an increasing joy. His opportunity it is 

"To see the world in a grain of sand, 
And a heaven in a wild flower; 
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand 
And eternity in an hour," 



CONSERVATION OF BEAUTY 111 

It must be admitted, however, that many 
in the country live as John Calvin is said to 
have done in the presence of the Alpine 
wonders — indifferent to the great oppor- 
tunity. The church must accept some re- 
sponsibility for this. It is open to question 
whether the church can minister religiously, 
even in the most narrow sense, while un- 
concerned about the beauties of life that 
breathe the very presence of God. Reli- 
gion must draw a part of its vitality from 
such experiences as Wordsworth's: 

"And I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air. 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought 
And rolls through all things." 

It was recently said that the reason for 
the low prices of beautifully-bound second- 
hand copies of standard English poets on 
sale in a Canadian city was the fact that 
the present generation was coming into the 



112 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

possession of books, for which they did not 
care, that had been brought from England 
by their parents. If this is true of any 
country district, it requires no prophet to 
foresee an increasing city-drift from that 
territory. The country cannot content one 
as a mere place for the making of a living. 
He who has no larger motive is likely to 
live in the country as a man in exile, long- 
ing for the pleasures which the country 
gives sparingly, and failing to appreciate 
the qualitative joys which the country is 
willing to lavish. White's "Natural His- 
tory and Antiquities of Selborne," which 
has already been published in more than 
eighty editions, gives splendid testimony 
concerning the pleasures possible in the 
country to the nature-lover who has the 
ability to make large use of his environ- 
ment. 

It becomes the duty of the church in the 
small community to conserve the apprecia- 
tion of the beauties of nature. Many 
churches in the country appear largely to 
neglect this splendid ministration. With- 



CONSERVATION OF BEAUTY 113 

out doubt this neglect reacts upon the 
church and weakens its social service. In- 
deed, because of its necessary influence, 
the country church that fails seriously to 
conserve the love of the beautiful in every 
way possible creates a peril. The discovery 
of the passing beauties of flowers, trees, 
harvests, outstretching landscapes, is one 
of the great compensations of rural labor. 
When these discoveries are not realized, 
and all things become commonplace, the 
open country is made monotonous and is 
brutalized. 

No country church, therefore, rightly can 
fail to assume the role of interpreter of 
natural beauty. The church should honor 
its own building and yard. The meeting 
place ought itself to be a thing of beauty. 
Rarely is this impossible. Intelligent in- 
terest and honest concern will nearly al- 
ways change the barren, even ugly, church 
building sometimes to be found in the 
country into a dignified, appealing House 
of God. Church papers ought to give 
more space to this side of country religious 



114 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 



work. The faculties of state colleges ought 
more often to be called upon to give advice 
regarding shrubbery, trees, and lawns for 
the churchyard. Where there is a library, 
the church people should see that some 
such periodical as The Craftsman is added 
to influence the community. The appeal 
to beauty by the church service ought 
never to be merely a by-product. In some 
form such as sermons, concerts, lectures, 
exhibitions, flower shows, a definite appeal 
may be made every year that will greatly 
increase the appreciation of natural beauty 
on the part of the people of the com- 
munity. 

The church should also consciously labor 
to develop that community spirit which re- 
spects its own resources of beauty. Such 
respect flowers in many social virtues. The 
inspiration of the church should give vital- 
ity to a popular village improvement so- 
ciety. The needs of the church and the 
school-yard should be given constant atten- 
tion. All such effort lifts the standard of 
life. The moral protection that results from 



CONSERVATION OF BEAUTY 115 

such appreciation of beauty can hardly be 
overstated. The appeal which is made by 
a revelation of beauty often sinks deeply 
into youth, and remains a memory that 
strengthens character, and purifies. The 
minister in the country may well think of 
natural beauty as one of his assets. Rus- 
kin's "Modern Painters" can bring to 
many a country pastor the change of mind 
that Henry Drummond says it gave him. 
Even the words of Jesus have a deeper 
meaning to the lover of the country's 
beauty, to him who has learned that 
"sweet is the lore which Nature brings." 



XI 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
SERVATION OF GOODNESS 

Social life draws its health from morality. 
It is goodness which provides every worthy 
thing in human society with its vitality. 
Morality thus makes society possible, for, 
void of goodness, human association would 
prove itself the existence that Thomas 
Hobbs pronounced "solitary, poor, nasty, 
brutish, and short." 

The moral resources, therefore, of any 
community are of priceless social value. It 
is as true of the group as of the individual 
— the claims of goodness are supreme. 
Man's social progress is conditioned by his 
moral growth. Any attempt to conserve 
goodness and to express it in worthy ac- 
tivities is an effort which, when successful, 
means the lifting of the level of human 
association at some significant point. No 

116 



CONSERVATION OF GOODNESS 117 

real social problem falls short of social 
causes. No social remedy meets the final 
needs of the occasion unless moral reforma- 
tion is included. Morality occupies no part 
of life. It demands the right to permeate 
all life. It follows, therefore, that moral 
opportunities may be found in ordinary 
circumstances, and that moral forces need 
to operate in the common experiences of 
life. Christianity recognizes this to the 
full. It proclaims throughout the entire 
territory of life a universal moral worth. 
The church that conserves moral values 
will enter into the commonplace of life and 
dignify it with the prerogatives of moral 
consequence. 

No institution in the small community 
has so great a responsibility for developing 
the moral forces and utilizing them for 
social welfare as the church. The city 
church shares this responsibility in a 
greater degree with other organizations. 
The country church is in possession of a 
large part of the moral equipment of the 
community. The church surely fails if it 



118 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

conceives its function as merely to make 
use of the moral forces of the community 
for its own prosperity. Of course the 
church never consciously assumes such a 
position, but since the actual attitude of the 
church is largely determined by the thought 
of its leading members, it happens that 
some churches really do regard their social 
mission selfishly. The church organization 
cannot rightly take any other position than 
that of an instrument. It is in duty bound 
to lead moral strivings into profitable social 
activities, to put ideals to work, to bring 
moral purposes face to face with real needs. 
The church discovers moral resources, in- 
vigorates moral purposes, and trains moral 
energy into efficient social service. In con- 
serving the moral resources of the small 
community the church needs to emphasize 
moral activities rather than sentiments, a 
positive rather than a negative morality, 
moral causes rather than results. 

Religion is always in danger of being ex- 
ploited by persons who are socially patho- 
logical. Even normal persons easily form 



CONSERVATION OF GOODNESS 119 

the habit of conceiving of virtue as a senti- 
ment rather than a volition. Morality, 
true to its instincts, leads to activities. Re- 
ligious work in some small places is made 
nearly hopeless by the irresponsible talker 
who expresses fine sentiments, but who so 
acts as to lose the respect of the commu- 
nity. The moral burden of such persons is 
well understood by every experienced reli- 
gious worker in the country. It needs to 
be noticed, however, that these difficult 
people are at times the logical outcome of 
the attitude that the church itself has 
taken. Professor William James, in his 
discussion of habit, h&s written clearly con- 
cerning the danger of creating ideals that 
are not brought to a discharge — in other 
words, of producing sentiments without re- 
gard to action. The church may uncon- 
sciously give the impression that attending 
religious services is a virtue, when the peo- 
ple need to be taught that the purpose of 
all such gatherings is inspiration for ser- 
vice. The teaching of the church may 
give the impression that the instrument is 



120 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

itself the end. It certainly brings ques- 
tions to the mind of the social worker to 
find in a small community the greater 
part of the moral energy of the church 
being spent in supporting many religious 
services that lead to nothing concrete, 
when the moral conditions in the town 
imperatively demand specific efforts, 

The country churches, as social workers 
often know by sad experience, sometimes 
preach a negative morality rather than a 
positive one. An atmosphere of repression 
is produced by constant emphasis upon 
prohibitions. Christianity ought surely by 
this time to be free from the interpolated 
asceticism which has no proper place in 
its teachings. Youth, who might respond 
to a positive appeal to do concrete whole- 
some service, flee the church that considers 
that its ministration has to do mostly with 
the infliction of trivial prohibitions. Chris- 
tianity in its early history did not become 
a militant moral force by emphasis upon 
prohibitions. The country church that 
takes its work seriously will kill out so- 



CONSERVATION OF GOODNESS 121 

cially unwholesome elements by substitu- 
tion. It will by instinct assume a positive 
attitude toward the community at every 
point, and provide opportunities for the 
doing of things worth while. Such a pro- 
gram splendidly conserves the moral re- 
sources of the small community. 

The country church needs above all else 
to think in terms of moral causes. It can- 
not conserve the moral resources of the 
community unless it functions with ref- 
erence to the causes that operate morally. 
The minister must interpret significant 
scientific information that makes for moral 
and social efficiency. Parents especially 
need concrete instruction at many points 
that a morally ambitious organization, such 
as the church, should give. He who will 
take the trouble to uncover the moral life 
of some of the youth in many country 
places will appreciate the significance of 
this. Why should not the churches get 
scientists who can make a popular appeal 
to give courses from time to time upon 
matters that concern the moral and social 



m COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

interests of the community? Such courses 
are given in the cities by organizations that 
have a part of the moral and social purpose 
that belongs to the country church. When 
churches create a demand for this kind of 
work, workers will be found to undertake 
it. The writer's experience recently in giv- 
ing a week's course in sociology in the 
church of a community in New Hampshire 
has demonstrated in one case that more 
people appeared to respond to such an 
undertaking than most ministers would 
have supposed. 

The most powerful moral causes are 
born in the home. The church that 
ministers to the social needs of the 
community will certainly teach constantly 
and with precision the solemn duties and 
magnificent opportunities of parents. The 
parents must be taught that they cannot 
with success farm out their children mor- 
ally by making use of organizations such as 
the school and the Sunday school. It re- 
quires greater skill to develop moral effi- 
ciency in the home through the teaching of 



CONSERVATION OF GOODNESS 123 

the church than to start some organization 
that may for a time meet the problem 
created by the failure of the home. The 
church, however, needs to think of its 
problem in terms of causes, and to utilize 
its moral energy in making wholesome con- 
ditions at those points where character is 
first made. The temptation to attempt to 
change results while causes are allowed to 
continue is always present. It is true, how- 
ever, that social progress comes best by 
attention to causes; and, by its teaching 
and practice, the church should enforce 
this truth with reference to the practical, 
social problems of the community. 



XII 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
SERVATION OF TRUTH 

Religion conserves the highest values of 
life. It assures trusting men and women 
who respond to the appeal of the spiritual 
that their deepest cravings are trustworthy, 
and, in this manner, religion protects the 
sources from which issues the wholesome- 
ness of human society. When true to its 
instincts, religion adds to the appreciation 
of spiritual values an energy that forces 
these values to become abiding motives of 
gracious, persistent, and sacrificing social 
service. Assurance of the credibility of 
truth men and women deeply crave. Re- 
ligion, in satisfying this human craving and 
thus conserving trust in truth, creates an 
unequaled energy for labor that makes for 
social betterment. 

The social service of any country church 

124 



CONSERVATION OF TRUTH 125 

is in no small part determined by its atti- 
tude toward truth. Any organization of 
individuals meets the same temptations 
that the individuals themselves encounter. 
There are subtle but persuasive influences 
that operate upon a church in such manner 
as to make the organization sometimes un- 
consciously deficient in its passion for truth. 
These influences are more captivating in the 
small community than in the city because 
of the closer contact of persons. This con- 
dition of disloyalty to the finer conception 
of the claims of truth may develop even 
when the organization is most zealous in 
pressing for recognition as the community 
teacher. Outward prosperity does not 
measure inner worth. The history of the 
Church abounds in warnings that the 
spiritual mission of any body of religious 
persons must not be thought of in an easy- 
going, self-satisfied, formal manner. A 
vital passion for truth precedes a vigorous 
social activity. This explains why the so- 
cial service of the Church is so largely con- 
ditioned by its teaching concerning the area 



126 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

of truth and by its success in inspiring re- 
gard for truth. 

Any small community suffers when it is 
commonly thought that religion belongs to 
a part of life, that it is a field of experience 
rather than an attitude that enters into all 
experiences. This is a fundamental mat- 
ter, for no religious zeal expresses itself 
socially in reasonable manner when life is 
conceived of as divided into sacred and 
secular. Even those most satisfied with 
such a conception find it impossible in 
concrete cases to draw the line of separation 
between the two parts of life; and the most 
unscientific observer notices in individual 
cases that causes in one field cross over to 
produce results in the other. The Chris- 
tianity of Jesus suggests at every point 
that all life must be thought of as sacred, 
except such elements as result from the 
sinful desire to destroy or limit this sacred- 
ness. The church, it would seem then, 
must take spiritual possession of the entire 
territory of activity in a community, pro- 
claiming the absolute prerogative of truth 



CONSERVATION OF TRUTH 127 

in every concrete social interest. The 
church that fails at this point can at best 
assume merely a limited social service and 
must find itself without all of its resources 
for successfully carrying on its limited work. 
The rural community especially needs to 
realize the permeation of truth in all of its 
life. Farming is an industry that must be 
carried on in a field where great natural 
forces operate without the usual degree of 
human control, and, at times, not accord- 
ing to human interests. Agriculture has a 
hazardous character, expressed in such con- 
crete difficulties as droughts, frosts, insect- 
pests, and over-stocked markets. The 
farmer, more than most men, because of 
personal experiences, may come to think of 
life as a gambler's chance, and of success as 
largely an accident. This fatalistic tend- 
ency in the thinking of farmers has been 
noticed by writers, just as tendencies of 
thought in other occupations have received 
attention. The great danger, however, in 
this tendency of rural folk is the decreased 
interest in knowledge as a means of con- 



128 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

trol. The scientist finds in his failure to 
control natural law a challenge for further 
investigation, while the farmer's experience 
often contributes to the upbuilding of a 
fatalistic philosophy of life. 

Any occupation that requires a constant 
struggle with natural forces tempts one to 
become fatalistic. The sailor and physician 
meet this temptation as well as the farmer, 
but the larger number involved in the case 
of the farmer makes this rural temptation 
of greater social significance. If enough 
individual farmers in any community be- 
come fatalists, the spirit of the entire 
community is colored and depressed. The 
town settles down to accept whatever 
comes, and even degeneration may begin. 
It is interesting to notice that, although 
no science can be so important socially as 
that which has to do with agriculture, it 
has been one of the slowest to develop. 
Fatalists do not become enthusiasts for 
knowledge. Who, however, can doubt the 
great need of an increase of knowledge in 
most rural communities regarding the 



CONSERVATION OF TRUTH 129 

proper methods of conducting the com- 
plex and difficult business of farming? 

The church should accept responsibility 
at this point. It must set itself against the 
current and insist upon its members' real- 
izing their obligation to take a proper 
interest in those matters that have to do 
with individual and social well-being. 
Some, from sheer laziness, turn to the 
spiritual as a refuge from the necessity of 
facing actual situations in this life that 
demand clear-headed thinking. The church 
should teach a philosophy of conduct that 
is born of the belief in a well-ordered and 
morally rewarding universe, It may wisely 
assume a distinction between spiritual truth 
and human knowledge, but it ought not to 
encourage the idea of a separation between 
the two. The farmer must be saved so- 
cially by his finding himself within a sacred, 
truth-permeated world as he plows, plants, 
and reaps. He must value knowledge as 
the human construction of a part of the 
truth of God, born of a divinely given in- 
stinct, and realize that by despising the 



130 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

handiwork of conscientious men he does no 
honor to the greater eternal truth. The 
prosperity of the rural community is de- 
termined largely by knowledge and effi- 
ciency, by mental vigor and physical skill. 
Science is never more needed than in the 
work of the farmer. The church needs to 
appreciate this, and then to discover that 
its own prosperity is related to the pros- 
perity of the community it serves. The 
unprosperous farmer must either lower his 
standard of life or change his business, 
which usually means removal from the 
community. This lowering of the standard 
of life means a decrease in the possible con- 
tribution of one person to the social minis- 
tration of the church — perhaps the creation 
of a social problem. If the discouraged 
farmer or his sons go city-ward, there is 
likely to be a loss to the community that 
would not have happened had the church 
been able to help the farmer meet his 
problem successfully. The church cannot 
become socially efficient and neglect its in- 
dividual resources. 



CONSERVATION OF TRUTH 131 

The church that holds up to its members 
the conception of an unbroken world of 
truth, sacred at every point and God- 
created, needs to finish a good work well 
begun. It ought to assume in the small 
community the largest obligations for in- 
spiring regard for knowledge and reverence 
for truth. This really means that the 
church in its teaching must keep near to 
the actual, immediate, and everyday needs 
of its members. Of course this is largely a 
question of the attitude of the pastor, and 
his attitude is often decided by his train- 
ing and instinctive sympathy. One who 
watches a church in a small community at 
work can hardly fail often to observe that 
little results socially because little effort is 
definite and related to concrete social 
needs. When a church shows regard for 
such truth as is pertinent to definite, social 
conditions, social progress is certain. The 
history of Christianity is suggestive as to 
the possibilities of such definite social effort 
on the part of the church. 

The church that ministers to the life of 



132 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

the community will have a large conception 
of its educational work. The minister may 
not teach agriculture, but it appears fair to 
ask that he inspire his followers with such 
a regard for knowledge and truth that it 
will assure the success of any agricultural 
club or similar enterprise that may be 
wisely started. The minister, also, if his 
church is to be socially efficient in its rela- 
tion to the community life, must build up 
the conception that social, moral, and 
spiritual conditions are related to causes 
and that reforms must also operate by 
means of causes. There are conditions that 
a community cannot tolerate because they 
are producers of contagious evils. Such 
evils, perhaps, can be removed only by the 
substitution of new circumstances that will 
bring forth benevolent, character-building 
causes. The saloon may remain until a 
recreation club is successfully organized. 
The community often tolerates great evils 
because so many persons are not taught 
successfully that what a community sows 
that must it also reap. It is doubtless un- 



CONSERVATION OF TRUTH 13S 

fortunate that ministers usually have stud- 
ied philosophy so much and science so 
little. It is not always the instinct of the 
minister to think of causes in the realm of 
social and moral experiences. Science has 
a tendency to make one look always for 
causes and this tends to conserve effort. 

The church can be inspired to a realiza- 
tion of the social significance of truth by 
self-examination at times. It may be a 
revelation to the socially inefficient church 
to trace out in detail without prejudice its 
effective social influence, but it comes to a 
better social self by an honest survey of its 
work. In cases not a few such an investi- 
gation leads to one rational conclusion — 
the church can help conserve the moral re- 
sources of the community only by losing 
its individual life by uniting with another 
organization. Moral resources are too sa- 
cred to be used in keeping alive two 
churches where social welfare calls for one 
effective community church. 



XIII 

THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
SERVATION OF HUMAN EX- 
PERIENCES 

The social resource which has most sig- 
nificance for the future of any community 
is the potential character of its people. 
The church of the small community is 
therefore supremely tested by its efficiency 
in conserving the moral capacity of the 
people to whom it ministers. No social 
service of a community church can prop- 
erly be an end in itself. The church must 
have a social vision and a community pro- 
gram because moral character is greatly 
influenced for good or evil by social con- 
ditions. Interest in the means of social 
advance must not dull, however, in the 
consciousness of the church the ultimate 
purpose of all it does. It serves socially 
that it may minister morally. 

The church of the small community 

134 



HUMAN EXPERIENCES 135 

should conserve morally to the largest pos- 
sible degree the significant experiences that 
deeply operate upon the character of men 
and women. These tremendous events of 
life, charged with potential good or evil, 
stand out clearly in the rural or village 
community. Human joys, sorrows, strug- 
gles, and tragedies are not so largely hidden 
from the community as they are in the 
great urban centers. People do know what 
is happening to their neighbors, and they 
care also when they have moral sympathy. 
The lasting influence of these momentous 
experiences of life is to no small degree 
decided by the sense the individual has of 
the sympathy, understanding, indifference, 
or malice of his community associates. Lit- 
tle can happen in the small community 
that does not excite social interest. No 
one is more conscious of this fact than he 
who is called upon to assume with self- 
control an experience of great joy or en- 
dure with courage an overwhelming sorrow. 
Men and women often pass through these 
experiences and are forever after different 



136 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

from what they were. It is the business of 
the church of the small community to pro- 
tect people from danger as they pass 
through these testing ordeals. That this 
may be done it is necessary that the 
church create in the community the whole- 
some social attitude which comes from 
moral sympathy. The church can do this 
service by becoming the skilful interpreter 
of the profound meaning of the crises of 
life. Narrow attitudes of thinking and feel- 
ing must be driven out of the minds and 
hearts of people by a deep sense of human 
need and brotherhood. To believe this im- 
possible is to doubt the practical efficiency 
of the teaching of Jesus. 

The people of the small community often 
have an attitude of morbid curiosity re- 
garding the critical experiences that indi- 
viduals have to face. The moral danger of 
this both for the individual who meets the 
crisis and for those who, watch him with un- 
wholesome interest is very great. To pre- 
vent this moral injury on these occasions 
when character is supremely tested, the con- 



HUMAN EXPERIENCES 137 

structive influence of a church ought always 
to be felt, and morbid curiosity pushed 
aside. Of course this is to expect much of 
the church, as anyone who knows the weak- 
nesses of the small community will admit, 
but surely it is not unreasonable to ask 
Christian people to express their good pur- 
poses in practical ways and at the places 
where there is special need of moral self- 
control. Morbid curiosity may be replaced 
by kindly sympathy. To bring this sub- 
stitution about, it is necessary only to lead 
people to do unto others as they wish 
others to do to them. In any case, it is a 
serious mistake for the church of the small 
community to view this unkindly curiosity 
with complacency. If character is to be 
conserved, a practical concern must be felt 
for those experiences that profoundly in- 
fluence people. 

The church must certainly guard its own 
institutional influence from any reasonable 
criticism. It is deeply unfortunate for the 
entire community when these critical 
events of human experience are merely 



138 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

exploited by the church for moralization. 
It is fellowship both in joys and sorrows 
that is needed — not preaching. The church 
is tested by its ability to enter into the 
experience of moral ordeal and the church 
fails unless it discovers in such experiences 
the common human and spiritual meaning. 
What we share with others in life we feel; 
we do not detach ourselves and use the 
results of our fellowship as mere homiletic 
material. 

Perhaps in all one's life there is no more 
profound experience than that which gath- 
ers about the birth of a child. When many 
people in the small community by keen 
spiritual insight feel the deep significance 
of the coming of a new life in a home, a 
wholesome social atmosphere is certainly 
being maintained. The parents may have 
their own moral purposes deepened by 
being made conscious in natural, friendly 
ways of this moral sympathy. How un- 
happy for the community when the deeper 
meaning of the coming of the new life is 
lost in trivial, even morbid curiosity! On 



HUMAN EXPERIENCES 139 

such an occasion one may often see most 
clearly the real character of the spirit of a 
neighborhood or the characteristic moral 
culture of a community. 

The wedding also has great social and 
moral significance. In the small com- 
munity it is sure to attract attention. It 
is an experience that has in its influence 
peculiar dangers. A vulgar, ostentatious 
wedding may for a long time bring into 
the small community most unhappy in- 
fluences. An element of coarseness may, 
for example, be given emphasis at the 
wedding, and in large measure the moral 
value of the experience may be spoiled. 
It is also true that a natural, wholesome 
wedding with a moral fellowship at its 
basis may elevate the purposes of many 
men and women who witness it. 

And what may not be said concerning the 
moral opportunity of sickness and death? 
Perhaps here we find the supreme test of 
moral fellowship. The sympathy must be 
sincere; its expression so far as is possible 
practical. Mere sentiment usually shows 



140 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

its inner heartlessness, and usually causes 
in him who suffers an irritation that has 
moral consequences. He who has thought- 
fully observed the community reaction to 
death knows the peculiar moral problems 
that gather about it and about the funeral. 
The experience of death is indeed a moral 
opportunity for the church or the revela- 
tion of its moral inefficiency. 

Some of the less serious experiences have 
in the small community moral value for the 
church. The home-coming of the son or 
daughter and the community reaction to it 
may mean much to the family concerned. 
The struggle with adverse circumstances, a 
struggle generally known throughout the 
community, may give to those who pass 
through the ordeal a very vivid apprecia- 
tion of the sympathy or indifference of the 
community, and years after they may show 
the influence that the community attitude 
had upon them. 

In order to bring wholesome influence 
upon those who are meeting the morally 
significant experiences of life, the church of 



HUMAN EXPERIENCES 141 

the small community must prepare for such 
experiences before they happen. The effort 
to meet a crisis when it comes is often im- 
possible, for the proper basis for service 
has not been provided. The right-minded 
pastor of the church of the small com- 
munity will be always realizing the sig- 
nificance of the experiences that do make 
character and trying to keep his church 
people in that spiritual sympathy with suf- 
fering that will enable them to serve people 
who need them when the occasion arises. 
The trying experiences bring to men and 
women their great moral dangers and vic- 
tories, and the endeavor to make wise use 
of such important events of life must form 
a part of the program of the church that 
would conserve the moral wealth of the 
small community. 



XIV 

THE MINISTER OF THE CHURCH 
OF THE SMALL COMMUNITY 
AND HIS PERSONAL OPPOR- 
TUNITIES 

The character and efficiency of the min- 
ister largely decide the success of the con- 
structive social service undertaken by the 
church of the small community. The min- 
ister may be loath to accept the burden of 
so great a responsibility for the success of 
the program of the church, because of the 
handicaps he experiences in his position. 
It is of course true that his position is 
not an easy one, but moral leadership is 
never free from trials that test the temper 
of men's souls. So long as the minister is 
conscious of moral leadership, he realizes 
that his position has its compensations. It 
is his honest doubt of the value of his ser- 
vice, a scepticism by no means rare in 
these days, that furnishes the supreme test 
of his moral devotion. 

142 



THE MINISTER'S OPPORTUNITIES 143 

The minister who thinks of his church in 
causal terms and who develops its program 
of social service with a sense of strategy 
surely ought to carry his thinking one step 
farther, and regard himself and his oppor- 
tunities from the same view-point which he 
has taken to judge the work of the church. 
A serious study of his ministerial service 
for the purpose of obtaining efficiency 
should greatly increase the usefulness of 
any minister of a rural or village church. 
Such a minister certainly should have a 
very clear idea of the resources that he 
personally has because of his position. 

One of his resources is the opportunity 
he has to conserve his health. If a man 
has intelligence to use the opportunities 
that the rural and village community pro- 
vide, he has the best possible basis that 
environment can furnish for the establish- 
ment of efficient health. The man of the 
city is seldom out of doors enough; he 
usually does not exercise in the open air 
enough. The gymnasium is a poor sub- 
stitute for a long country walk. As a 



144 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

matter of fact, the minister in the country 
often fails to utilize his opportunities for 
physical efficiency, and his city brother 
occasionally by a greater care conserves 
better his physical vitality. The country 
minister surely ought to take seriously his 
moral obligation to keep in good physical 
condition and to make use of the oppor- 
tunities provided by his environment. 

During a season unusually favorable for 
winter sports, I have heard of only one 
minister's making use of its recreational 
advantages, and that was a city pastor in 
charge of a large church who has led 
several Saturday afternoon snowshoeing 
expeditions to which all interested persons 
were invited. Some of our small com- 
munities in the northern part of our coun- 
try need to take to heart the splendid op- 
tunities furnished during the winter for 
common outdoor sport and recreation. 
The minister who appreciates the oppor- 
tunities for wholesome pleasures and vigor- 
making recreation furnished both winter 
and summer in most small communities is 



THE MINISTER'S OPPORTUNITIES 145 

likely to realize also the social value that 
these outdoor activities may have in mak- 
ing people wholesome, healthy, and willing 
to cooperate. In any case he is a foolish 
man if he throws away with indifference 
the means given him by his environment 
for the making of a life of physical vitality. 
The minister who works in the country 
or small village also has a great advantage 
over men in the city because of the close 
contact with nature provided by the open 
country. This is one of the privileges of 
life, although unfortunately it is one often 
neglected or unrealized. There are people 
who, during a short vacation in the coun- 
try in the summer, come to have a more 
vital relationship with nature than many 
who live in the country all through the 
year. Certainly this need not be true. 
The minister who serves country people 
and has little appreciation of the poetry 
and scientific interests represented by the 
rural environment has lost much out of 
his life. His personal loss also becomes a 
loss to the community, for rural people 



146 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

need always preachers who can interpret 
to them the beauty of country life, so that 
they may enjoy to its fulness the wealth 
given to them by their environment. When 
country life is robbed of its beauty, when 
the poetry of the long-stretching fields, of 
the meandering rivers, of the herds knee- 
deep in meadow-grass makes no appeal, 
rural existence is often hard, barren, and 
even brutalized. Rural social health de- 
mands that the intimate relation between 
rural people and nature should yield those 
romantic and poetic elements which all 
through human experience have made com- 
mon things inspiring and profound. 

The country minister may well cultivate 
his ability to appreciate nature. He is 
fortunate if he is a lover of Wordsworth, 
for no poet can teach him more regarding 
the poetic material in the common expe- 
riences of rural life. Ruskin's "Modern 
Painters" also may furnish a key to the 
vast wealth of beauty contained in cloud, 
sky, water, and even space. Surely Whit- 
tier will not be forgotten by the mind that 



THE MINISTER'S OPPORTUNITIES 147 

hungers for spiritual insight from fellowship 
with nature, nor will Burns be neglected by 
those who crave larger brotherhood and 
deeper sympathy. The material for poetic 
education abounds and every man may 
happily follow his choice. He who, with a 
sterile imagination, attempts to serve coun- 
try people, who finds all poetry dull, who 
never even in the bewitching days of 
childhood came close to the heart of na- 
ture, has undertaken a great task with 
needful preparation at one point at least 
sadly lacking. 

In his nearness to his people the minister 
of the church of the small community has a 
third advantage. He may enjoy an inti- 
mate knowledge of personality, just as he 
is given the conditions for a close contact 
with nature. This opportunity to know 
people deeply is a very great privilege in 
ministerial service. Knowledge of men and 
women need not be obtained merely from 
books. It is difficult indeed to live in the 
country without discovering much about 
human motives, the weaknesses and the 



148 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

strength of character; in the city, on the 
other hand, it is not easy to uncover the 
deeper life of men and women, because 
they are hidden in the crowd. Life moves 
on rapidly and for the most part the rela- 
tions between persons must be superficial. 
The complaint that the country minister 
most often makes is that his people are 
narrow in their appreciation. At least it 
has seemed in conversations with ministers 
of country churches that this criticism of 
rural people was most often made. This 
human fault of narrowness in one's interests 
would no doubt be as frequently regretted 
by the urban minister, if he knew his con- 
gregation as well as the country minister 
knows his. The rural minister must recog- 
nize the great advantage of this close rela- 
tionship between him and his people, and 
he is short-sighted indeed if he permits his 
intimate and significant contact to dis- 
courage him, because of the revelation it 
makes of human weakness. This close 
association of people and pastor in the 
country makes it possible for the rural 



THE MINISTER'S OPPORTUNITIES 149 

and village minister to realize the needs of 
those for whom he works and to measure 
more accurately the value of the service of 
the church. What the minister finds in 
the lives of his people is both his test and 
his challenge. 

The minister of the village or the coun- 
try church has, when his time is wisely 
conserved, the chance to study and think 
in a way that gives him substantial intel- 
lectual results. It is true that he loses in- 
spiration and other advantages that be- 
long to the urban minister, but his 
environment tends to make his intellectual 
experiences penetrating. In the quantita- 
tive life of the city it is difficult for the 
mind to get full value from its activities. 
There is so much that enters the thinking 
that there has to be a decrease of intensity. 
Many city thinkers develop a crowded 
mind, rather than one that is profound. 
They think many things, but nothing 
deeply. The very limitation imposed upon 
the reading of the minister of the church 
of the small community tends, when op- 



150 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

portunities are wisely used, to develop 
solid attainments in the serious study of 
human experience. 

It is a happy fact that the minister of 
the small community is becoming so in- 
terested in books that are concerned with 
practical social problems. The work of the 
minister is seldom better than his thinking. 
Usually he thinks in harmony with the 
character of his reading. A minister of a 
country church recently said that it was 
difficult to get books of a sociological char- 
acter from a ministers' lending library in a 
certain city, although books of theological 
character could easily be had. This was 
due in part to the greater number of theo- 
logical books in the library, but also to the 
great demand for books relating to social 
problems. Since this library lends books 
especially to country and village preachers, 
this desire for books on social matters is a 
most striking revelation of the social view- 
point of the country minister. 

This interest in books of social character 
certainly promises much for the future of 



THE MINISTER'S OPPORTUNITIES 151 

the rural church. Men who live in the 
country and who love the country are just 
becoming conscious of their social require- 
ments and resources. The great need in 
the rural ministry is men who, while they 
live deeply in the every-day life of the 
present, have social minds that see afar 
off. It is to such leaders that rural people 
turn with profound craving for spiritual 
inspiration. The men and women in the 
country who hunger for social progress re- 
alize their constant need for spiritual pene- 
tration. They require for their daily duties 
the dynamic social impulses contained in 
the faith of Jesus. Country people espe- 
cially, because of necessary association with 
nature, are morally mutilated by daily ex- 
periences that do not uncover inherent spir- 
itual truth, that do not accomplish moral 
discipline. The open country must take 
possession of its peculiar character-mak- 
ing opportunities or grow morally sterile. 
The best of the country shrivels when rural 
idealism faints. Wholesome rural life re- 
quires besides greater production, better 



152 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 

marketing, and more recreation, the spirit 
of moral adventure and spiritual conquest. 
The country minister is asked, therefore, 
to weld together spiritual vision and social 
motive. To a man who thinks this can 
seem no ^mall task. It demands of him 
social enthusiasm and spiritual vigor, sci- 
ence and faith. In his obligation the rural 
minister discovers his supreme opportu- 
nity, a part in the unique moral crusade 
which in our day must decide the charac- 
ter of country life for many years to come. 



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